Soulforged Dungeoneer

Let's be clear to start here--I didn't expect that a discussion of ghosts pre-Dungeons was going to ever happen because I thought it was made completely irrelevant by the Starfall and the Dungeons. Like, a lot of things got weird once weird alien whatsits arrived in orbit and dungeon entrances started popping up. Of the myriad of things that mattered now, me maybe seeing ghosts was low on the list.

And it was always a 'maybe'.

"So you're saying I'm right," was Jenna's interpretation.  "Magic was real."  It was kind of infuriating; I grit my teeth and tried to explain just why what she was saying made no sense to me at all.

"I get what you're saying, but..." Except that I didn't. She didn't seem to understand, at all. "I wasn't... some kind of person who was able to," and I waved my hands in the air as though mocking the very concept, which I was, "grant wishes and change fate, or even read minds or hypnotize people. I was a dumbass who was plagued by things and just trying to stay sane."  I dropped my hands to my side.  "I might as well have been crazy. I might still be. I didn't enter the Dungeon and get a class or skill that told me that my existing maybe-ghost-sight was some kind of skill it recognized. I've never seen anything from the Dungeon that validated what I saw before--never."

Weirdly, and almost instantly, I got a strange sense that I associated with all of those bad experiences, and turned my head in that direction. The outline I saw in the air... might have been...?

"What?" When I glanced back at Jenna, the whole group had spun to face the direction I was looking, and was scanning the open air, looking for whatever had drawn my interest. "Was something there?"

I forced myself to not say anything off the cuff by biting my tongue and closing my eyes. I didn't want to say yes or no. Because I didn't... I didn't...? Honestly, I was having trouble putting it into words. I guess...

I guess it felt like people were playing with my feelings. I let go of my tongue and glanced up at the ceiling, away from the phantom, and addressed her in that direction instead, as I usually did when talking to Administrators. "Just don't," I said to her. "I don't... if you're going to do that, at least say that's what you're doing. It's not funny."

"Fun--"

And then I and, for some reason, Louise were in the White Space. It hadn't changed, except for the tea set out on the white coffee table--three cups of fresh, steaming tea--and one extra chair.

Louise let out a squeak of protest at the sudden change, but I was in a bad mood. Instead going for the tea or comforting her, I just immediately walked over to the nearest chair and threw myself into it, letting out a long breath, feeling exhausted before I even asked the question.

"So it was real, huh?"

"Yes." The Administrator's voice was flat and even, without emotion. "Did you really doubt that?"

"Of COURSE I doubted!" I stood up, feeling terror grip me in the same way it would have five years before, before I had gone Dungeoneering, when I was just another nobody with nothing but dreams. "If I didn't doubt I would be one of them. Don't you understand?"

The Administrator, a pudgy woman standing at attention on top of a settee, turned her head to look straight at me but said nothing in return.

"There are people who claim things that are obviously wrong. People who believe crazy things like magic is--was--real and that people could do whatever they wanted to. People who claimed things like... like breatharianism, that a human being could just breathe with no food or drink and survive, or that they could do... all the things that we couldn't do..." That we couldn't do before. It felt weird to say that.  I collapsed back into the chair, feeling petulant.

"But that's not what you believed."

I grit my teeth and gestured outwards, vaguely. "I'm not going to become one of them."

"Then don't." Her voice was matter-of-fact. "Did you really think you were alone?"

I sucked in a breath through my teeth. In a way, it was like an argument with myself, and losing badly. "Yes."

For some reason, I noticed the Administrator's head pivot to Louise, and not because she had picked up a cup of tea, since that was like... ten seconds ago. She continued to stare at it, puzzled.

"It's just tea," said the Administrator. Louise looked at her, back at the tea, and took a sip. She kept looking at the teacup after that first sip, though, pensively.

"I've seen a ghost," said Louise, as though out of nowhere. "A couple times, actually.  I saw the one you looked at, too." She took another sip of tea.

I had trouble taking it seriously, in a way, but I also did my best to take a deep breath and not judge her. Because there were crazies, but that didn't mean... right? It might mean... or it might not, but...

"Muratama told me," she said, not looking away from her teacup, "that Priestesses are chosen from those who have been touched by the dead. It's not like I asked for it, you know. I freaked out after my first trip into the dungeon. I was praying, but nobody answered. I knew there had to be someone out there. None of the gods I knew of answered, so I just asked if there was anyone, anyone out there." Her face puckered like she'd eaten something gross. "I realized afterwards that was... probably really really dumb."

"Yeah," I said, my head stuck on the fact that she didn't ask to be a priestess, but...

"When he made contact with me, that was it. I was a Priestess. I was thirty years younger, none of my shirts fit anymore," she grabbed one breast and squeezed very hard, as though it had offended her, "and I didn't know who my god was or what they wanted. And then I started getting stupid little quests that didn't answer that question, and..." she spilled a little tea on herself when her hand suddenly shook, and she gasped, quickly putting the teacup down. "Ow... sorry.  Ouch."

Suddenly, both of us turned to look at the Administrator, as though she had cleared her throat or something, but she didn't. She just kept looking at Louise.

I felt dumb in a lot of ways, but I could only shake my head. "I'm sorry, Administrator. I didn't mean to... take up your time."

Her head swiveled back to me. "She's right, you know."

She paused as though that was a complete thought, but I didn't understand at all. A long moment went by in which she didn't explain, and I had to prod her to it. "Who's right?"

"The mage. Your power is stronger because you were mentally prepared." With the hair hanging over her face, it was difficult to get any read on her tone, but I thought she was looking at me a little more directly. "Most people aren't ready to be more than human. You already had a sixth sense. Without that, you could use Telekinesis, but you couldn't use the True version of it."

Both of us recognized the capital letter in her speech, and Louise and I glanced at each other. "True version?"

"Is that not clear?" Her head twitched left, so she had an inquisitive tilt to her head, but the movement was all wrong, too sharp. "The system is artificial. Skills and Classes are artificial. They are built. The True version of that skill that you use is not built; it is yours."

"You can do that?" asked Louise, sounding somewhat breathless.

"Was it not clear?" A phantom breeze blew the Administrator's hair out of her face, and we could suddenly see her face. It looked, in a strange way, normal--but only normal if the administrator was running on the ragged edge of going completely crazy. Her eyes were as wide as they could possibly be, bloodshot, and her face, I realized, had always been that drawn with tension and stress. "This is the deal we offered Humanity: Access to the [ Dungeon Key ], and in return, once you had learned how to use it, once humanity had proven that it could adapt to the key, once they proved that they didn't need to be hand-held, we would be free."

"We would finally," the Administrators' face lifted to the sky, as though trying to catch sight of a god above her, and I thought her face looked even more manic than it did before. "Finally, be free."

"So the Full Clear quest is to prove we don't need the Dungeons anymore?"

The Administrator's head snapped back to me, and without the hair in the way, her eyes were intense. "No," she said, and a smile slowly spread into a manic grin on her face. "Ah, haha. They'd be so mad if I told you. No, that's different. Ha, haha. Ha, ha ha."

The fact that her laugh was artificial, monotone, off-tempo, and felt nothing at all like a laugh did not stop it from sounding completely psychotic and in that way fitting with this new insane version of the woman that we were seeing.

Louise was already backing up, and I felt suddenly like I should join her, if only to reassure her that we were going to be okay. And... in a way I couldn't put a finger on, it did feel like it would be okay. I got out of the chair and moved to her, but... sensed something behind me, too. When I looked back, the Administrator's hair was covering her face, and she was standing neutrally at attention. Somehow, I sensed Louise being teleported away, although I wasn't looking, and turned to look at the Administrator one last time.

"Are you--"

"I'm not okay, no." Her face turned only slightly to look at me. "Life is unfair, Jerry Applebee. Not everyone makes it through life without true hardship the way you have. But those who can make it through life's hardships and keep their souls intact... those are the ones who deserve to have real power."

"That is the form of the Dungeon. It is the Why that you are looking for. Those who falter, those who fail, do not deserve power. If they have more than they deserve, they will destroy the world around them. We have seen this too many times to doubt it. But we are also looking for those who discover the beginnings of True power, of True skills. Your people were born on a world where those True skills were unneeded."

"Without need, a True skill cannot grow." In a motion that startled me, the Administrator's arm suddenly moved, more frightening for the fact that her use of the arm was correct in speed and mannerisms, as she reached one hand up to her face and pushed the hair out of her eyes one more time. The eye that looked back was still bloodshot, still on the verge of madness, but somehow calmer, deeper. "You won't be able to test your True skills here. Find the Hidden Quest on the next floor. You will understand the Reward. You will need her." She paused, and cracked a smile, one that seemed more natural than the cracked thing she'd shown a moment ago. "If it's you... you might get another reward out of the Quest, but only if you dare to take it."

And then I was back in the Dungeon.