Soulforged Dungeoneer

The top of the mountain was a wide plaza, and sitting cross-legged in the middle of it was a man. On his head was a mask, but it didn't cover his face; he had it pulled up on top of his head, and he looked at the ground in between us, his face unreadable, though I thought I detected deep boredom or some deeper discontent. In front of him was a very stereotypically eastern tea set, with a small fire set up to the side along with a frame holding a kettle over it that was currently steaming. Bo--since it could only be him--reached over and plucked the kettle from its place over the fire in the least sensible way possible; he reached under the kettle, his hand in the flames, and picked the hot ceramic up with his palm, fingers curled around the gently curved lines of the tea kettle, and pulled it over to his tea cup, placing one finger from his other hand on the lid to keep it secure as he poured, all without looking.

"Cozy place," I said, not stepping forward quite yet. It wasn't, of course; there wasn't even a crude hut here, no comforts of home except for the tea, and from what Merry and I could tell, no sign that there had ever been anything.

Bo gave a single chuckle, and when his eyes raised to mine, I could see something as deep as the fake ocean I'd just walked through to get here in them, a darkness in his soul that seemed unpleasantly relatable. "Not going to announce yourself?" he asked, as though I was supposed to understand whichever specific traditions he was expecting.

I rolled my eyes, but gave a bow at the waist--in the Western tradition of sweeping stage bows, not the more formal Eastern shit. "Jerry Applebee, Soulforged Dungeoneer, at your service."

Bo gestured for me to come forward, and looked down again. I decided that the obvious thing to do was to sit opposite him for tea, and did, because everyone involved in this entire system was insane, and I'd damned well gotten used to it by now. "Did you ever meet the Administrator here?" I asked as I sat down. "She served tea, as well."

"I have not," he said, sounding uninterested, even as he deigned to pour hot water in my own cup, which I noted had a bit of green powder in the bottom. "My only loyalty now is to my Queen."

He hadn't started on his tea, so I waited a moment as well. "How did you come to fight a Fairy Queen?"

Bo's mouth twitched, and he seemed to be fighting an urge to meet my eyes. "Have you been into the Fairy Dungeon?"

"I have."

He nodded. "Truly, you are the most promising fighter I've seen since I arrived. I decided when I entered the Fairy Dungeon that the creatures were an abomination. The idea of being forced to hold my own class together... it amused me, but I thought the ugly and distorted creatures were to blame. I demanded that the creatures show me to the one in charge." He shrugged. "This was unwise, for any person desiring to continue living."

Given the power of the rabbit fairy, who I was very sure was not a Fairy Queen, that was a significant understatement.

Bo finally picked up his tea cup, and I mirrored him for the moment. He did not immediately drink, so neither did I. "In death and rebirth, I discovered my purpose," he said, and there was a religious quality to his voice that I immediately distrusted. "My attempts to grow stronger were meaningless without context. The path that the Dungeons lead us down is meaningless--power for the sake of power. Those who travel this path are corrupted, and I do ...not regret what I have gone through since then."

The last was a transparent lie, one I didn't need telepathy, empathy, or the Vampiric Cloak to detect. Bo's soul cried out in pain when he thought of his past, but the words were forced out anyway.

He sipped his tea, and I did the same.

"Purpose doesn't redeem you," I said after a moment of silence. "Anyone can be made into a tool. That doesn't make you special."

Bo tilted his head, as though surprised by my comment. He considered it a moment. "Do I need to be special to be redeemed?"

I frowned, unhappy that I'd phrased things to create that weak point in my argument. "No," I said. "But as a tool, your redemption requires the redemption--or the virtue--of your leader. If your leader--your owner, your user--isn't virtuous, then you aren't, either."

"Ah," he said, "but all that says is that you disagree with my Queen." I could tell he was flexing the muscles in his arm, the surface of his skin swelling, as though he was trying to intimidate me.

"Let me tell you a story," I said, carefully. "Though I'll make it quick. I entered the Dungeon deep in despair, and I killed to gain power. I was overcome by my own demons, willing to sacrifice others for my own sake, but in the hours after I gained that power--hours, not days--I began to feel remorse. I'd traded human souls to a monster in the Dungeon that gave me a power over human souls--a power not unlike the one the Fairy Queen must have used on you. A power that would have let me take control over anyone I beat, potentially giving me an army of Dungeoneers as loyal to me as you are to her."

Bo raised his head and met my eyes, again, and I felt the eyes were muddy, combining multiple emotions without any being the clear victor. "And?"

"And I refused to ever use it on a human. I realized what I was becoming, and... and just decided not to." I drank the last of my tea and stood. "The only two times I ever used it were both of Dungeon bosses--once on the Voodoo Woman, and once on the Devil himself. Both times, I turned evil to my own purposes. But even so, it felt like shit."

Bo didn't move, didn't speak, just looked at me. When the silence stretched on long enough that I felt like I hadn't said enough, I continued.

"I felt like shit," I repeated, "to claim to be the one who was deserving, when I hated myself and the world I was creating. It felt like shit to pretend to be a leader when I was a thief. To pretend that I knew what I was doing when I was getting further and further from the world I wanted to live in with every step I took. When I used it on the Devil, at least I was doing it with his own consent--he no longer wanted to be a puppet of the Dungeon. But even then, I couldn't really give him hope. A single magic trick doesn't change the world. The only way to make things better is to build a new world within the old world, or overtop its ruins--but it's the building, not the destroying, that makes things right."

"Your old life was stolen from you, and I don't like that," I said. "I don't like someone else deciding who you are. For a while, I thought maybe I could take you back, but now I think that's impossible. And even if I could..." I stopped and let the insinuation hang in the air, to see if he understood.

"I do not with you to take my soul from the Fairy Queen," Bo said, and I could feel no honesty or heart behind those words, as though they were scripted, as though it were someone else talking.

"I destroyed the skill, you know," I said, and I equipped Dracula's Cape and flared the Vampiric Cloak, forcing the two to align. Bo looked up, and I know he sensed something. "I used the parts for this. Because it feels like shit to steal people's souls, but stealing the world--taking a part of the stage for yourself, being in control of the fight? That's different. Everything's fair in war."

"I lost my soul in a fight." Bo finally stood up, more gracefully than should have been possible considering he was seated cross-legged, and he finally pulled the mask down over his face. Which, again, might have been intimidating, for someone else, but intimidating me? With a mask? Not gonna happen. "Isn't that fair, by the same rules?"

"Taking what you want from the powerless is different," I said. "It's different while you don't know who will win."

"I know who will win this fight," Bo said, and he lifted his arms, as though massive weights were holding his wrists down, and he was struggling against them. "You cannot defeat me."

This time, when I flared the Vampiric Cloak, I could feel Dracula's Cape also swirling, and for some reason, the sky darkened. But Bo--terrifying monster that he was--virtually disappeared as he leaped forward, a great deal of power behind a single strike.

But when the blow should have landed, I wasn't there.

In a way, Bo was still too fast for me, but he was also grandstanding at the moment. He'd intended to appear inside my guard and strike, instead of making it all one motion, and I read his position well enough to scrape by. The Cloak helped me slip by the edges of his perception, stealing a little bit of control away from him, but the man suddenly flexed his willpower and sent out a wave of energy.

It should have shaken my control over him, but it didn't quite. I let my control loosen anyway, instead focusing everything I had on dodging.

Bo made a combo of three punches, none of which should have been lethal, and yet still it was only by teleporting that I dodged the second, let alone the third. But he paused in that moment, and my sword materialized in his face, and I swung like my life depended on it, trying to distract him.

Bo bent backwards in a way that spines weren't supposed to bend, and I had to dodge a kick to my face that definitely shouldn't have been possible from where he was.

In the moment of the dodge, though, Merry finally emerged, slipping outside the darkness that the Cloak had created. I was sure that Bo had sensed her leave, but he wasn't sure what she was, not yet. I put more weight behind my sword and tried to hit him again, but the weight slowed me down when he was already too fast for me; he simply twisted in midair, getting his feet under him in a way that was improbable anywhere outside of a Hollywood CGI fight, or maybe a Chinese martial arts movie. The point was the same either way--he didn't give a rat's ass about physics, and was happy to show that off.

"Your pet can't beat me," he said, and I bristled a bit, and lifted my sword at him.

"Merry's not my pet," I said, defiantly. "She's my sister."

Merry had taken the time to get into the air, and she flexed the power of one of her earrings, into which the power of three separate Harpy bosses had been poured. The Synth, Harpsichord, and Hurricane Harpies all had one common mechanic, and that made it trivial for us, after pulling them apart, to make them all into a single, stronger version of the same. And despite some misgivings on my part, to seal the deal, we then pulled apart the redundant copy of my beloved phoenix disk jockey, whose sole purpose in life was to enhance friends and restrict enemies. It felt miserable to do in the moment, but... it felt right once the pieces were in place.

As Merry's earring began to glow, so did her dress, flickering like a disco ball, and my fairy raised her head to the heavens, and from her mouth poured a song that I knew from... somewhere, musical accompaniment appearing as though from nowhere.

Oh, oh oh oh... (Y'all ready?)

Oh, oh oh oh... (Let's go)

The notes washed over me, and I grinned, only wishing it were Louise here singing, though I couldn't imagine the song sung in her soft voice. I could feel something rising in me, and I could tell something was falling in Bo, though there was no reading his face through the mask.

Before he could dare take a move at Merry, I launched forward, giving my everything to find that trance point, in which the whole world narrowed and there was only me, my skills, and my enemy. The world that had once been my everything, before I had found friends and a reason to live. Now, with my soul more at ease, it was harder.

Now, here it is, want to make your move Something with a funky kung-fu groove Something that'll make you shout Make you play to the crowd, and make you want to turn it out

My sword blurred, and I let the sword vanish and reappear in my off-hand repeatedly, trying to keep Bo off-guard. His speed was still insane; Merry was probably holding three or four song effects at once, boosting me and restricting him, and yet his raw stats were still more than a match for me. But... he lacked focus, far more than I did. He was tired, it had already showed in our conversation, let alone the fight. Tired, lonely, and lost. His life had narrowed and narrowed into an empty miserable hole in the world in which he was forced to murder people and then sit waiting for more prey. He could still fight--he could move with incredible speed, hit with incredible power. But after each move, there was a hesitation.

It wasn't long at all before I got a hold of his pattern--not a 'pattern' like with a Dungeon boss, but the moment in which he was overwhelmed by his emotions, when things stopped making sense to him, when he had to convince himself to keep going. And I snagged that weakness with the Vampiric Cloak, tangling it up in barbed wire, and pulled.

He leaped towards me, missed, and stumbled. He might have been able to take ten steps in the time it took me take one, but his foot slipped, and it surprised him. In the confusion, I jammed everything I had into the Cloak, getting inside his Dungeoneer system and snarling every piece that wanted to move.

Everybody was kung-fu fighting

Those kids were fast as lightning

In fact it was a little bit frightening

But they fought with expert timing

As much as anything, the fact that the music hit the chorus pushed me into a reckless attack, my blade whipped out as fast as I could make it go, cutting a half dozen times into Bo's shoulder. The damage brought him to his senses, and he twisted and punched, but it was too predictable. I was underneath that strike and already rising, my blade in his armpit and slicing like I wanted to bisect the joint of his shoulder. Somehow, I felt him resisting my Assassination skill, of all things, his willpower refusing to let the fact that I had hit a critical point matter, and he was already starting to take another shot at me.

I spun to avoid the strike and made another three fast blows before dodging back. Bo snarled at me, but his eyes were still distant, confused, and I could tell he didn't understand what I was doing. He stepped forward and tried to hit me with a hand of claws like he was some kind of panther, but the Cloak let me teleport behind him, and I found myself in a handspring, only half intending to do it. I curled up for an instant and pushed off the ground, delivering a full-on drop kick, except with my arm strength in place of the force of gravity. It momentarily lifted him, and me, and spun him around, and in a moment where he wasn't able to get a read on me, I teleported again, coming out in the direction he was moving, my sword in my hand and swinging.

There was a moment where I thought I felt reality flex. I could feel it through the Cloak, first--Bo got pissed, and pressed against the real world with his will, and suddenly his leg moved faster than it should have, could have. I barely got my sword in between him and me, but he shattered it and kicked the broken remnants of energy away, energy crackling around his limb as his soul burned to provide him with power.

It felt, in fact, almost exactly like Merry felt when she edited the dungeon, except he did it as an attack, which was... well, more intimidating than his stupid mask, that's for sure.

"Your sword is pathetic," he hissed at me, as we separated for a moment. "I can break it with a thought."

"Fine by me," I said in reply, another appearing in my hand, "that's all it takes to make them."

I made another leaping lunge, aiming to hit his joints on the way by, but had to abort and dodge as he started taking this a lot more seriously. That was good, for me--the more he focused on the martial arts of it, the less he seemed to understand that the Cloak was already inside of him. Maybe he thought it was the first taste of fear he'd had in a while, or maybe he'd been manipulated by magic so long that he was dead to the sensation, but even as I flung myself away, I pushed deeper into him, the system testing his resistance and finding it lacking.

Sexy kung-fu fighter

Let me take you higher

Sing, kung fu fighter

Take you higher

Bo's movements were obviously slowing down, but I could feel something else in the depths of his ...soul, I guess, or magical body, or mind, or Dungeoneer Key, whatever. Something... maybe like how I felt when Merry was there, but nowhere near as personal, nowhere near as close. I put the thought aside and threw my sword at him, jolting his insides in the moment when he wanted to dodge. He still dodged, but by a lot less than he expected to.

And then I was in his face, sword smashing into his mask--fairly easy when I knew how he intended to dodge, and when he was starting to get confused.

"Stop this," I heard him mumble, underneath the mask, and I didn't, but I also dodged back, throwing the sword to ensure some distance between us. As I half expected, he deflected the blow, and then slammed his foot down on the mountain, forcibly setting himself a stance.

What I didn't expect was that when he struck the mountain with his foot the entire mountain cracked in half.

It wasn't the attack power of it, I would later realize. He had shaped the Dungeon level, and he could reshape it. But his foot came down, and in a straight line across the mountain, the two halves of the enormous geographic feature slid apart by the width of my hand. The edges perfectly sharp and flat; if you peered down it at an angle, you could see daylight on the other side. If that had been because of a single sharp attack, as I kind of thought it was at the time, holy SHIT.

He distracted me from that, though, by continuing to talk.

"Do you really intend," he said, quietly, and I had to focus on him to hear. "to make a mockery of everything I am, everything I have ever been," he suddenly turned and pointed at Merry, "by defeating me to this fucking music?"

I snorted a laugh, though I was worried he'd do something to Merry. "What would you prefer? Mellow jazz? Hip-hop? How about kid's music? I still remember the Muppets--"

"What I want," Bo snarled, and as if responding to the drama of the moment, his mask began to crack and fall apart, revealing his mouth and the lower portion of his face, "is for you to take this fight seriously. To take me seriously. To take..." he swallowed, but lifted his arms in a fighting stance again. "To take the chance of me dying seriously. To treat me like a worthy opponent until the very end."

On the one hand, I understood what he meant, so much that I wanted to die. My whole life had turned around in a fight where I was meant to die like gutter trash, helpless against someone more powerful simply deciding that I deserved to die. But on the other hand, this wasn't about a chance of him dying. Even if he won, my key would be used to get rid of him, at least according to the quest. Given that, it was less important how he died--except that I needed to be the one to do it. If I had his corpse... who knows, maybe there was still a chance.

In the meantime, I didn't have a lot of respect for him.

"Fine," I said, and I raise a hand to gesture to Merry. At this point, she should be low on energy, and... and, well, we'd worked out one more interesting thing while resting and preparing for this fight. She stopped singing, and came down next to me, but instead of returning to recharge inside my head, she removed her Harpy earring and handed it to me.

I slipped it onto my own ear, and Merry and I shared a look, then I turned to Bo, doing absolutely everything I could to hold a straight face.

"I'll show you exactly how seriously I'm taking this."