Soulforged Dungeoneer

My first stop was the communications center. No new messages, but I only really needed to drop one piece of outgoing mail--to Harold, who was the only real point of contact I had for higher level people. Hopefully he knew how to get in contact with someone better, because the only other option was to go to the local Dungeoneer's Guild or maybe all the way to the US Dungeoneer's Association, and I didn't like either of those for different reasons. The locals were... kind of petty, small-minded people; you know, suburbanites. And the Association seemed by all accounts to be self-righteous assholes who had worked their way into politics for reasons that were largely self-serving.

I told Harold to contact me as soon as he could, and gave him my phone number.

That done, I looked around the End Town. As was always the case, everyone here was perpetually dancing. They were NPCs, the lot of them, and they lived empty shells of a life; I watched an old man hop on one foot for a while, then stop, shake his butt in a random direction, change into a wide stance, shake his butt much harder, and only then did he start shuffling again in the direction he had been walking. After a moment, that switched to hopping backwards with both feet, his butt jumping into the air like he was expecting any minute for an attractive woman to meet his butt-thrust with one of her own, at which point they would grind against each other.

But no, he just did that for a few feet, then switched to another kind of dance-walk. After maybe ten minutes, he reached the end of his walk route, turned around, and came back. He would keep doing it forever, and ever, and ever.

Which would be funny if I wasn't thinking about dungeon monsters invading reality. But yeah, I was. It was hard to let go of.

There was no mechanical reason for me to stay in town--no bonus on skills, or even regeneration, that I was aware of--so I just marched off to the hole in the ground that was my ticket out. As was the case last time I was through, the word "CONGRATULATIONS!" was etched around the hole. I stared at it for only a minute and then jumped through.

Whatever.

I got a little nervous when I realized my inventory would be examined, again, for tax purposes... but let it go. Last time I left, I left with the Devil's Skulls, and the Administrator had told me they were actually really valuable. Either people would find that out eventually, or the loot I had now really wouldn't matter. My haul did raise a few eyebrows, but the staff sergeant, the appraiser, and the accountant looking over my inventory were polite enough not to make small talk.

And then I was in my car headed home. I made a detour to Taco Bell when I realized I didn't have anything in particular worth eating at home, but nothing more substantial than that. I entered my crappy little apartment, looked around with a sigh, and collapsed on the couch.

10AM the next morning, Harold knocked on my door. That was weird, because I didn't tell him where I was and he didn't call ahead. I guess... some wizard thing? Maybe? I mostly just really hoped he wasn't some homosexual stalker or something. That would be... uncomfortable.

I stared at him for a minute, but shook it off. This was more important than that. "We need to talk about... something that happened in the Dungeon."

He raised his eyebrows, and pursed his lips. "What kind of thing?"

"Just get in here."

He sat on the couch, at my urging, and I pulled up a chair from the table to sit opposite him. "I went back and cleared Pearland. It was... different this time." I realized, not for the first time, that this was going to be awkward since there were parts of the whole event chain that were probably covered by my 'Nondisclosure Agreement' 'Class feature', and pursed my lips. "There are parts of this that I... cannot actually say on pain of very painful death, but the important thing was, I ended up with a quest chain that claimed, if I completed it, would end up with the Dungeon invading the real world."

Harry's face went through a lot of different expressions as the conversation went on. I could tell, also, that he noticed my level--30 on the nose--meant I could no longer re-enter the Dungeon. But his attention snapped to me immediately when the word 'invading' came out of my mouth.

"What was the quest?"

"I was supposed to deliver a declaration of war to a Dungeon God in another dungeon. The Devil said if I did, the quote-unquote 'Mortal world' would be involved."

Harry let his head roll back, and closed his eyes for a minute. That one, he looked straight at me.

"I sat in on someone else talking about this," he said, "but I think you better hear it from someone else. If you want to bring anything with you--phone, spare clothes--put them in your inventory. We may be gone a while."

So I packed for a few days, not really sure what he was thinking, and then he apparently teleported us, which I honestly didn't think he was high enough level to do--he'd gone up since I last saw him, but he was still less than level 200, and that seemed low for an ability with such intrinsic real-world value. After all, the highest level Dungeoneers were above 5000, last I checked.

I let out a scared hiss of breath when I saw the seal on the wall at the destination--the Dungeoneer's Association. I felt... a little bit perplexed, though, when I realized it wasn't the US Dungeoneer's Association. There were a series of flags around the logo--US, several European ones, but definitely others I recognized as Asian. Why had he brought me here?

Harry led me immediately out the door and to a reception desk, where a number of people whose names I didn't recognized were paged to a meeting room that he quickly and quietly led me to. That meeting room was, as meeting rooms go, very meeting-roomy. It would not have been out of place in literally any corporate setting across the world, except for one small detail:

A hole was carved out of the table just large enough to fit a sword through it. The sword was, I noticed, stuck in a rock beneath the table. On the blade were words that shifted languages as soon as I laid eyes on them, becoming the phrase, "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born."

"...is that--"

"Excalibur, yes. We think it's a joke item, but nobody is quite sure. You can give it a pull, if you like. Don't absorb it."

I had to stand on the table to try, but since I'd been invited to, I did. It didn't move. I felt a little miffed, but was able to quickly shrug it off and hop down.

"Now clean the table." Harry offered me a spray bottle and a paper towel. I sighed and did as he asked. I suppose I could have hovered over it instead, but... that seemed like cheating, even if it wouldn't likely give me any advantage at all.

By the time I looked up, there was a short, fat man with sunglasses and a level over 800 sitting at one of the seats of the table. He nodded idly, and grinned when he saw me looking. When he spoke, he had a thick accent that I couldn't place--Russian, or eastern Europe, somewhere. "Always, we have to check, yes? This world, not so many kings in it, but always we want to be the one."

I just gave a shrug, threw out the paper towel, and replaced the spray bottle on the side cart it had come from.

Within about ten minutes, three more arrivals had come and sat, all of them over level 500, the lowest being 613. Only when they were seated did Harry clap his hands. "Alright, sorry I had to call you in like this. I am not an expert in these matters, but it sounds like we have another Full Clear Quest."

The four high leveled monsters all immediately turned their heads to look at me. I hoped sincerely they didn't have some ability to tear me apart with only their eyes, because it sure as hell felt like they could if they wanted to.

"Jerry," said Harry, sitting down next to me, "tell us everything you can."

I hesitated. There were... a lot of reasons to hesitate, but there was one big one. "I, uh, I'm Jerry Applebee. I am a solo diver who's only been in one dungeon, and only ever alone. I just finished it and there was a, uh, a quest. The final boss told me to deliver a message to a dungeon god in another dungeon, and said if I did, then... something like, matters in the dungeon would spill out into the mortal world."

"Was it a difficult quest?" The short man appeared a bag of chips from his inventory and pulled them open. The nearest person to him, a tall angular woman who looked very stern and very German, looked at him with obvious disgust as he started munching on them.

"Well... I mean, it's a zero-to-thirty dungeon. And, uh, this is all slightly complicated because I am under a condition that prevents me from describing certain parts of what happened and I'm not actually sure which. And if I break the condition I'll die. Painfully."

"You pissed off the Administrator?" The third newcomer was a black man with a thick African accent, and I mean a really black man, his skin that kind of deep deep black that I figured had to mean both coming from deep black genetic stock and also spending a lot of time out in the sun. "Or perhaps you saw something you weren't supposed to?"

I pursed my lips and could only say, "At some point I received an item," I glanced at Harry, "which I absorbed, and uh, I'm not allowed to talk about what led up to that. But... from a certain point of view, most of the quest led up to that point. It's just that... I don't think that the point of the restriction was so that I couldn't talk about it."

"I don't sense a status effect. How is it affecting you?" Harry was squinting at me.

"It's... technically a Class Feature now." I pulled it up in my UI, but just as I was about to toggle it to visible, I stopped. My face must have frozen, because the black man made a nasty chuckle.

"Ah, I know that look. The administrator made a mistake, didn't he?"

I toggled the visibility of the pane and spun it around.

[ NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT - Lv 1M ] By [ ERROR: MISSING ], you agree on pain of very painful death never to reveal the chain of events leading to [ ERROR: MISSING ]. Warnings may be provided but are not guaranteed.

"Sounds like you are free and clear," said the Russian(?) man. "So, what is problem?"

I winced, grit my teeth, and toggled the other "class feature" to visible.

[ CURSED TRUTH AURA - Lv 100 ] The System is constantly scanning you and other items in the area. Skills [ Appraise ], [ Analyze ], [ Skill Sage ], [ Class Sage ], [ Monster Sage ], [ Human Sage ], [ Forensics ], [ Psychometry ], [ Telepathy ] increased within the area of effect.

The four people in the room let that thought churn in their heads for a moment before the German woman jumped out of her chair and flattened herself against the wall like a cat dropped in a bathtub... full of acid, maybe? Or would that just kill the cat? Never mind. "You... you are saying that you can read our minds right now? Why exactly did you not tell us this?"

"I can't, and I wasn't planning to be here." I grimaced. "I didn't even know you people existed."

"Is interesting," said the Russian. "I am thinking, is very useful ability. Not for you, I mean," he said suddenly, as though just realizing that I was there, "I mean, you are very useful, like tool. Send into party, make other people's thoughts easier to read. Is very interesting mechanic. High level."

"I find it hard to believe that someone with as many secrets as you are not concerned with this, Vlad," the German woman said, very sternly.

"He is very low level. Only one who might have known is Death Wizard. Last I checked he is not Spy Wizard." Vlad just shrugged.

Death Wizard? I glanced at Harry. There were a lot of different wizard subtypes, but I was not aware of one with a name that on the nose. Like sure, there were fire and ice and motion and even some dumb title ones like Mega Wizard and Fairy Wiz--

I made a note to ask Harry about the Fairy Dungeon thing, before the large black man got my attention again.

"There is a simple answer to what you can and cannot tell us," he was saying. "I have a contract with an Arbiter for the Dungeon System. As long as you are willing to be bound by whatever the Arbiter deems correct, they can... fix your problem, and you can ask it questions about what can and cannot be said."

"I would very much like to not be confused on that issue, yes," I replied.

"Oh no," said Vlad, suddenly. "No, please do not call Herman here. I do not like it when you bring him out."

The black man gave the Russian a wicked grin and pounded his fist on the table.

And...

...my mind locked up trying to process the creature in front of me. It looked like a very small fairy, mixed with a spider, mixed with such a confusing mash of stereotypes that I could not begin to describe it--half of the spider's legs were in steel-toed boots, half in high heels; the legs were all wearing different outfits: parachute pants, lady's stockings (over shaved spider legs), flared disco pants, and bare-ass hairy spider legs, plus a pair of human-looking legs that were dressed in business formalwear.

The spider-fairy's face was covered in a clown mask, and its wings looked like they were intended to be a stained-glass-window representation of a graveyard. A pair of human arms with fishnet stockings over the forearms carried an empty teacup and saucer, and the fairy's upper human torso was fucking ripped, like a bodybuilder's, with a white fighting gi with torn-off arms that looked out of place on literally anyone but Ryu from Streetfighter and this spider-fairy was definitely not him.

The spider-fairy, who I guess was Herman, pivoted in place to look up at the giant black man, and gave a little bow at the waist. "Hi, nice to see you," he said, in perhaps the most boring-ass, vanilla American accent I could ever have imagined a fairy having. "Did you need something?"

"Herrrrmaaaan! It's nice to seeee you!" The big black man had a grin on his face that was at least a third sadistic, as I watched him cast glances at Vlad and the German woman, both of whom were exceptionally uncomfortable. "How are things in the dark places between reality?"

"Oh, fine," Herman said very quietly, clattering his empty teacup and saucer together nervously. "There was actually a bit of a problem with the photocopier earlier. Sziel-ma`al tried to blame it on me, but I haven't used the copier in at least two days. He seems to think that I spilled my tea on it, but honestly, I bucked that habit months ago. I haven't had tea since... well, I don't know when.

"Sziel-ma'al is the one having sex with the rabbit?" The black man lowered his head to the table to look the tiny, and apparently shy spider-fairy in the face.

"Well, I mean, it's more parasitic egg laying, but yes. Mrs. Chyllu-llamaia doesn't seem to have found out yet but if she doesn't do something about it soon that wound will become infected. Honestly, I'm thinking I might just rat him out--"

"CAN WE GET ON WITH QUESTION PLEASE," interrupted Vlad.

The spider-fairy pivoted on his eight legs to face Vlad. "What question did you have, sir?"

"NOT ME, HIM!" The Russian angrily gestured at me, and the spider pivoted to look at me. With him actively facing me, I could see that he had drawn his hands with the teacup and saucer in close to his body, in what was clearly a defensive posture.

"Did you have a question, sir? Oh, dear, look at that." Herman, dear baffling little Herman, walked up to me, and then flapped his fairy wings and moved up to where he was studying the card for my Non-Disclosure Agreement 'Class Feature'. "Tsk, tsk. That's sloppy work. What happened to damage this?"

I felt incredibly anxious as the small spider fairy's naked hairy spider-legs with boots, and high-heeled, stocking-covered spider legs twitched idly in midair, and had trouble trying to force my mind to un-blank.

Fortunately, Harry spoke up. "He has a class that lets him absorb items. An administrator put a special effect on an item--"

"Oh, I guess that makes sense." Herman touched the UI window in midair, and damned if I didn't feel like he was directly touching my soul, with tiny little baby fingers prickling nerves I didn't even know I had inside my brain. "These things are very specific, and the broken pieces are referencing the item itself. If you summoned it, actually, that would be really helpful and I think I could repair the damaged systems."

It took me a moment to realize that his quiet and shy little speech was actually a request, and I tried to spawn the Devil's Garbage-Ass Trash Sword, only to find that it wasn't in my list. "Oh... right. I actually can't. He added an ability to it that meant that the item it was bound to wouldn't be absorbed, only the abilities." I suppose that even the item itself was an embarrassment, in its own way.

"Oh, that silly Xzyrtvwartcihz," sighed Herman, and I could swear that the noise that came out of his mouth sounded like a name, in spite of sounding like a living garbage disposal passing a shot glass--somehow, I could picture the hawaiian-shirted beanpole just hearing the sound of the word. "Alright, look. Without the original item, I can only enforce what the original intent of the enchantment was. Do you mind telling me what happened?"

"I mean, literally I can't speak what happened to anyone, that's the point," I said, amicably.

"Yes, I understand. But what do you believe to be his original intent? And no sense trying to lie about it, I'm easily four thousand levels higher than Xzyrtvwartcihz. I'm sure you understand that even small subtleties are not going to be lost on me."

I... stared at the spider-fairy-administrator of doom. Idly, as though he was unaware of it, the two spider legs with parachute pants adjusted the bellbottoms by tugging on them gently with the toes of the boots, as though they were riding up and needed to be pulled down. His head, still covered with a clown mask, tilted to one side, as though confused by my confusion.

"I am pretty sure he just doesn't want me to explain the chain of incredibly embarrassing mistakes he made," I said, my brain finally so completely locked up that it could only accept what was going on. "He could also be trying to hide the details of the whole quest chain. I honestly want to know which it is."

"Based on the empathic resonance, I would say the former," mused Herman, quietly. "It doesn't seem to be malicious. Here, let me just adjust this--"

[ NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT (AMENDED) ] Hi, please note that if you reveal the terribly embarrassing and foolish set of actions by the Administrator that led to you originally receiving this Agreement, you will be flayed alive in hell for a thousand generations. Thanks, Herman.

"There. I think that's a result we can all be happy with." Herman nodded sagely, and turned back to the big black man. "Anything else?"

"I admit I am very interested in hearing more of the gossip from your office," he said, with a wide grin.

"PLEASE NO," shouted Vlad, but it was too late.

"Oh, well, perhaps the biggest thing is there seem to be parasitic worms getting into the office through the air conditioning system. Poor Phuyllmi lost almost a quarter of his body mass to those things before he even noticed that they were eating him. Aczyma says he'll get the maintenance guy to look at it, but honestly, I think that's just an excuse for the two of them to go into a dark room and swap blood for a while. I've never been into intravenous make-out sessions, but the two of them sound like they really enjoy it..."

I think I might have passed out after that, or else someone took pity on me later and wiped my memories. If so, I wish they had done a better job.