Soulforged Dungeoneer

What with Louise and I disappearing and then reappearing, it was no real surprise that Mel and her group wanted a lot of explanations and really would prefer that we got somewhere stable before we gave them. Apparently, judging by the fact that everyone seemed really concerned, Administrators abducting people to chat was not actually as common as I had been led to believe.

"We're okay," I said calmly, but the serious faces I saw were a clear indication that shit like that was not going to fly with this group.

By consensus, we advanced to the exit and camped around it. The floor there was visible once you got into the room, and there were walls that you couldn't fall through, although like the floor they weren't visible until you got there.

Jenna, at the very least, was clearly interested in hearing more from our original discussion, but was willing to back-burner that until after we discussed being kidnapped by the all-powerful monster that was trying to kill us with music, boobs, and cocks.

"Wait," interrupted the shield tank. "Why was she standing on the couch?"

Louise and I looked at each other and shrugged. "The pose she was in was the same as the other Administrator I've met," I said. "And a lot of her motions were wrong. I guess she's not really in control of the body." Usually. The last motion she'd made was so lifelike that it was creepy, only because it contrasted so strongly with everything else she'd done. It was like a real person's body had been kidnapped and hollowed out to be used as a puppet, and then she had been allowed a moment to be herself at the end, just to prove that the victim was still in there somewhere.

"And the tea...?"

"It was just tea," Louise and I said at the same time, and looked at each other again. Somehow, that seemed like the only thing you could say about it.

"So you just disappeared--"

"Actually I'm curious," I interrupted in return. "What did the teleport look like? Anything?"

Mel gave me a strange look, but she seemed to deflate. Pretty much all of them looked uncomfortable at the question, really.

"It was like..." Will was the first one who spoke up. "My eyes refused to see the moment of the teleport. I had no choice but to look away. Some kind of mental thing that didn't want us to see or remember it. It hurt a bit, too."

"Huh." I scratched my head at that. Under certain circumstances, I could see that effect making sense, if the intent was to make people forget about someone they weren't focusing on, but the circumstances here would require some very serious mental gymnastics to just sweep under the rug. After all, they'd run across the map to reach us; if we just weren't there a moment later it wasn't going to be a subtle thing.

"So you just talk to the Administrator and it--she teleports you to this white room to have a chat. And you've done it before here, and more than once elsewhere."

"I'm fairly sure that the reason this Administrator was willing to talk to me was because of all the weird things that happened to me after talking with the last Administrator," I said, as deadpan as I could. "It's, um, how we got started, kind of." Just brushing up against the topic of my talks with the beanpole made me nervous, what with the NDA and all, but it was mostly a separate story anyway, just one that would have been entertaining if I could have told it. "Suffice it to say... apparently I'm strange."

Jenna threw her hands up in the air in frustration but said nothing.

"But as far as you can tell, the Administrators are human."

"They are... certainly people." I glanced at Louise, but she seemed to be leaving any discussion of these things to me. "But they could be aliens or AI or something else." I paused, and clearly it was obvious that I had something else to say because there was dead air before I added, nervously, "Faeries, maybe."

"Faeries are a real thing?" Melinda raised her eyes at that. "Not just as dungeon monsters, but some kind of real thing?"

"Faeries are definitely real," said the shield tank, nodding to himself. "There are dungeons run by Faeries, which are supposed to be crazy high-level things."

I nodded at him in return, wondering where he'd gotten that bit of knowledge. "The entrances to those dungeons are hidden, but yes, they are definitely a thing."

"But I... I guess I'm asking if faeries... were a thing? Before?" Mel's voice had kind of a strange twist to it that I couldn't put my finger on.

I could only shrug. "The things I saw and felt before the Dungeon were incredibly vague. It's not like a movie where they take an image and give it a filter so you know it's a ghost. We just... humans don't really have the ability to see them, I think. Or, I didn't. I guess... I mean, I guess I know know..." I sighed. Why was I still doubting what a powerful supernatural creature had just proven? "They really existed. And I could sense them. But I guess raw human biology isn't very good at spiritual things."

"What about the ghost you saw just now? That the Administrator created? Could you see better as a Dungeoneer?"

I shook my head. "I mean it was a little better, but none of you saw it either, right? There must be a skill or feature that gives a Dungeoneer body that ability, but I don't have it." I looked at Louise, but she was looking away.

"Can we get back to--" Jenna was incredibly impatient. "Like, I get we aren't going to get back to the other things, but can we at least get to what the Administrator actually wanted from you?"

I looked away, feeling some combination of being relieved and also scared. "She confirmed what I saw and said that... that before I came to the Dungeon I had some kind of ESP. And she said that, yes, that ESP is part of why I can do crazy things with Telekinesis." I paused, thinking. Had I been working some of my instinctual things into my use of Stealth? I was certainly counting on my instincts for critical hits, though I wanted to say in both those cases that it was more about training than extra senses. "...and maybe other things."

"Can you teach that?" When I looked back, Jenna's face was still an unreadable mask of impatience. "Since it's real and all, whether it's a dungeon skill or something else, can you teach it. To me, or anyone else."

I... sat there thinking for a long while. In part, my head didn't really want to process the question; it just kind of got stuck. But also, the question seemed like it was both important and difficult at once. "Well," I said after a moment, "as far as I know I can't reproduce the spiritual things," I gestured towards where the Administrator's ghost had been, offhand, "that I originally sensed, so no, I can't just teach it. There's kind of... like, before, there was this whole concept of a spiritual awakening, right? I don't know if that was real or just to explain why some people straight-up can't, but let's assume it's real. For someone else that's gone through it I might have advice, but I have no idea at all what that requires, and as far as I can tell, the fact that I went through that stuff isn't even on my Dungeoneer Card anywhere, so it's no real help."

"Why the hell wouldn't it be?" Jenna seemed cross, but I just shrugged. "Are you sure? Let me see yours."

I hesitated, then shook my head. "I do have my own secrets I'd like to keep, you know?"

"Like you being a killer? We know that part." Mel's voice had an edge to it.

I just shook my head. "That's public record. I don't always bring it up, but it's not a secret."

"So explain it, if it's not a secret. Why did you kill people?" That was Will, who had spent most of his resting time sitting a little ways away with his bow out, either idly or in a way that was supposed to be protective/threatening, I couldn't tell.

I grit my teeth, trying to work my way through the logic, although honestly I had trouble understanding it myself. "I don't... interact with people very often. Which if I'm being completely honest," which was easier since I had already gotten to this topic, "had a lot to do with being completely paranoid that people were going to call me some kind of lying deviant attention-whore bastard for complaining about the fucking ghosts that were driving me crazy, or worse, a very, very fear that I was crazy. Because it was a fucking everyday thing that I just couldn't... couldn't fucking do anything about, but which nobody else sees or gives two shits about even if they're there. So yeah, I really, really wanted to talk to people about something I just can't without sounding insane and maybe getting locked up for."

"You wouldn't--"

"AND THEN," I said, not really wanting to be interrupted at this juncture, especially not for empty platitudes, "the fucking Starfall happens, and guess what? Ghosts disappear on me. I did a search online, and there are some people who still have them, but not me. There are others who say, though, yup they've gone, and others who insist they're still there. Dungeons become a bigger thing. Do I hear anything anywhere about ghost wizards? No. People who used to see ghosts and become Dungeoneers either do or don't see ghosts anymore but nothing else happens. We're not special. No special class, no special skill, no title. Which leads a lot of people to ask were there ever really ghosts in the first place, even among the people who had to deal with them all their lives. So I start seriously considering that I may always have been insane and might be a completely useless brain case for the rest of my life."

"Meanwhile I'm sitting there barely making due with my fucking dead-end job hoping desperately that I was going to be special, hoping that someone else would discover that people like me are really the saviors of the world or something and that all of my worries were for nothing." I threw up my hands. "But nope! No secret skills, no secret classes, no secret anything. If another Dungeoneer did everything I did they could get all the same rewards because we really are equal; I'm not better or special in any way." I paused, knowing that there was an exception but reluctant to say it. I was also aware that I had strayed pretty far from the point about why I killed people, but it wasn't a topic I was eager to get back to, either.

"Except for that one telekinesis thing," said Jenna, whose voice still had a fair bit of bitterness in it for whatever reason.

"...Except yeah, I found this one weird trick." I sighed and leaned my head back against the wall. "It's not easy and I'm not even sure yet that it's all that special. It's easy to lose focus and it hurts like hell to perform like that. Like... it burning my nerves or something after a while if I don't take breaks fairly often, on top of being really stressful and making me feel crazy." I put one hand on my neck, but the pain wasn't as bad as it used to be, back then. "Or, maybe the crazy is just a part of me. I don't know. Anyway, it lets me throw harder and do some things a little more... like, I understand what I'm doing better, or I think I do. Like I understand the feedback that the skill is giving me, better. And that lets me use the skill better normally, without going into that weird and painful head-space. And it... it kind of acts like an extra sense, when I'm in it, so I felt better on those invisible platforms. I did it a lot when I was solo diving just to know that I wasn't walking into an ambush or a trap, but it's not like it saved my life most of the time. If I really was about to walk into an ambush, I usually heard it coming. If anything, Stealth is what saved me, and I was in that constantly."

"And do you have some kind of special Stealth thing like your telekinesis thing?" Jenna stepped forward, her face still clearly accusing me of something. "Show me."

I shook my head, using Skill Sage and showing the result:

[ Stealth ] - Lv 65

Growth Rank: [ B ] Growth Points: 66

[ Stealth reduces the sound of your actions and presence and can be fed Mana to blur you from sight, further reducing your presence. Has a stronger effect against Dungeon monsters. ]

Jenna clicked her tongue, and I thought a couple others looked disappointed, too. "I'm sorry I'm not some kind of all-powerful jack of all trades," I snapped back at her, bitterness heavy in my voice. "Like I said, I just have one weird trick."

"I have a question," said the shield tank, raising his hand. "Probably for Jenna since she seems to know more about this. What's with the difference in growth points?"

"Your growth rank determines how many points you get per level," she said, her voice somewhere between tired and still pouting. "It is the Dungeon measuring how good you are with the skill and rewarding you. AB is actually a lot higher than B because when you hit A it starts giving sub-ranks, AF through AA. Some people say there are higher above that, for people who are absolute masters of a skill." She shrugged. "With the sub-ranks, AB is like... twice B rank. I don't know remember what the wiki said the growth rates actually were, but it goes up slightly per rank. Anything below C is trash, that's all I really remember.  Stuff above A rank just sounded made up."

"And what do growth points actually do?" I don't know if he was actually asking this for himself or to spare me the embarrassment, but I appreciated it.

"A Skill Sage will let you spend them to alter your skill somehow. I have no idea if that's a function of the Skill or if you need a dedicated class in it. I thought that skill was only available for people of certain classes." She narrowed her eyes at me, suspiciously, "...but I suppose a self-made class breaks a lot of normal rules."

I was going to say that skill boosters were what made the impossible, possible, but it died on my tongue. Didn't my first levels in that skill come from spending Class Points on a Dungeoneer feature that gave me more information about items I wanted to absorb? At the time, I thought it was something with very limited use, just improving the descriptions of skills and abilities, something that might give me hints on using it better. Even Harry had said it wasn't all that useful, but I guess it just wasn't that simple. "I guess," I replied, lamely.

"Alter how? And actually hey, can you show me a Skill Sage window for my Energy Barrier skill? I feel like I'm doing okay with it, and I'd like to see how it compares."

I sighed and got up, marching over to him. I'd never used it on someone else, so I supposed it was worth a shot, especially with the Cursed Truth Aura giving me, effectively, a higher skill level. "Give me your hand," I said, not really sure how it worked.

He took off his glove and offered me the hand. I felt... a bit weird holding someone else's hand, but tried to put it out of mind. Unfortunately, just thinking about the Energy Barrier skill didn't seem to help. I frowned at him. "How about... show me your Skill Window for the skill. Let's try that."

He did, and I let go of his hand and touched the window instead, noting idly that according to his Card, his name was Robert. The window gave me a weird feeling--not just the act of touching someone else's UI, either. There was a sudden sense of connection to it as my skill activated, and his window updated to look a lot like mine had:

[ Energy Barrier ] - Lv 47

Growth Rank: [ B ] Growth Points: 60

[ Reinforces a solid object or projects a solid energy field. Reduces incoming attacks, blocks motion, and seals out harmful effects. Requires constant mana upkeep, plus additional mana to repair a damaged barrier. ]

He nodded. "So B rank is not too bad, then, but your Telekinesis has to be something special. What about upgrades?"

I just shrugged. "My level of Skill Sage is actually really low," I said. "This may surprise you but I don't actually use it much."

Robert laughed, and again, I appreciated that he was friendly and not being a dick like Jenna was.

"Try touching the Points," suggested said bitchy-mage, and Bob poked at his card, but if anything happened, it wasn't obvious.

I tried with mine as well, receiving a separate sub-window that had a bunch of question marks and nothing else. As in, I assumed, 'Yes this is how you do it but no you can't do it (yet).'

"No luck," said Robert. "There's something there, but..."

"My skill level is clearly too low." I nodded. "Unless I can figure out a trick to the skill, I'll have to grind it before it's usable."

"Well, if you want to practice..."

"Before that." The assassin from Mel's group (or whatever the class really was, but assassin-type to be sure) suddenly spoke up. He was just sitting against the wall, watching silently, and apparently trying to keep his eye on the ball the whole time. "Why were you returned almost a minute after Louise was? What did she tell you that was so secret?"

There was a long awkward pause as I considered what to say. "I don't really--"

"It's not like you can't keep your secrets," he hissed at me, and I thought he might be referring more to how I didn't answer the question about killing people than my refusing to show my complete Dungeon Card. "And I'm sure there are plenty of things she could have said that might have been for you and you alone. But given that our survival is still riding on making sure we make it through the dungeon whole I wanted to make sure that we weren't overlooking something important that you might think was irrelevant, since you clearly do that entirely too often."

That... at once made me feel like kind of a heel but also made me kind of upset, since he was accusing me of keeping a secret that was of immediate use to them. And... well, maybe. Still, after that little burst of attitude, I really couldn't keep myself from replying with a voice full of snark and sarcasm.

"Okay," I said cattily, "you caught me. The administrator exposed herself, told me about a secret quest with a reward made especially for me, and then sent me off with a smile. Is that what you want to hear?"

From the looks of them, the group was not so insightful as to recognize my sarcasm as a shade of the truth, although Louise had a strange look on her face. It took me a few minutes after that to remember that Priestesses didn't need to rely on their own insight to figure that kind of thing out.