Soulforged Dungeoneer

Once I had basically assured myself and them that the most important news had been delivered I took a break, ostensibly to actually sleep, though before that I stopped in at the Communications Center. I sent Harry a message: "I'm still in the Armand Bayou dungeon but I received a quest that I need to talk to you about asap. If you can I need to conference with you, give me a time."

I was not expecting a reply, and so I was pretty damned surprised when I got a note in reply even before I turned around to leave, saying "Tomorrow 10AM". I kind of blinked at it, because it sure as hell implied he was either in a Comm Center standing at a console when I sent the message, or staring directly at a handheld like the one I had. As far as I was aware, there was no time difference in/out of dungeons, so the only way for that to work... well, maybe he had a class feature for it? That didn't make a lot of sense, though.

In any case, I acknowledged it and then left, almost running into Louise as I was trying to set a basic alarm through the Dungeoneer interface. I hadn't... really dealt with her at all separately from the others at the table, which I guess was pretty cold considering she was my party member and they weren't. I only gave her a brief look, though, before shaking my head and just saying, "Come on."

We went to the inn and she didn't say anything as I booked the two of us a room--with two beds.

It wasn't until we were definitely alone--and Town Inns were, as far as I knew, the truly safest place in all the world, unable to be forced open or monitored by anyone, maybe not even the Administrators--that I finally let myself sag against the wall, slide down to the ground, and wallow in a little bit of self-pity. Because yeah, everyone else was kind of in no position to handle this problem and so just had to avoid it, except the poor bastard who was doing far worse than me, but that all meant that a lot of responsibility was on my shoulders to figure out a way to make things right, or at least better, if I couldn't make everything perfect.

Still, one way or another, the Administrator's plan was laid out bare in front of me, assuming the Fairy Crystal wasn't a trap. I would kill the Slave Dungeoneer, and then...

Louise just kind of walked over to one of the beds and sat on it, looking at me as though still very hesitant to talk. After a moment, though, she cleared her throat. "Can I see your bird? She seemed really cool."

Cool is not the word, I corrected mentally, but summoned Smokin' Hot on the floor beside me and gestured the foot-tall phoenix towards my party member. The hot harpy--Hah! She could have been called 'Hot hot harpy'. That would have fit the dungeon's naming scheme, if she were a full size creature--hovered up to sit on a small table by the bed, and I noticed that there seemed to be no heat damage to it, just as there hadn't been in the tavern. Louise's face lit up, and she cooed over the small bird, and after a little negotiating, Smokin' allowed some gentle scratches, and even seemed to appreciate them, though she seemed embarrassed.

"I'm not the one," I said out of nowhere, since no matter how I looked at it, there was no good place to start the conversation.

Louise turned to look at me, but her questioning gaze kind of faded after a moment into something like depression. "Not the one to beat the ...killer?"

I shook my head. "I'm not the one that you need to redeem."

There was a long pause, and I thought the whole room felt really awkward. I didn't want to continue, but... well, what could she have done except prompt me to say what I already knew I needed and wanted to say? "When I killed people in the Dungeon, the people that I really murdered, really... that didn't come back. I was lost back then, but I know, for myself, that what I did was wrong, and I don't really care whether anyone else understands that or not. I know I... have sinned," I said it that way only because I knew that was how it worked, in a sense, "but I don't really care whether the gods or anyone else accepts that I don't want to kill. Redemption for me isn't about me being brought back into the fold. I'll accept whatever punishment for what I did, because I care about what happens in this world."

"What about the one you killed in jail?" Louise went from looking at me to once again keeping her focus on the small flaming DJ, who continued to graciously accept the petting.

I just shook my head. "I don't... it's hard for me to explain just why I felt, that he didn't matter, that he... he wasn't much better than a monster. Maybe it was he way he talked, the way he acted, the way he looked, or how he... felt..." I clenched my teeth together, because I hated putting it that way. It sounded, again, like 'dur hurr I'm a psychic in a world of normies accept my judgement' bullshit. And... yeah, I'd killed someone because of something I couldn't prove. Why didn't I feel like that was worthy of condemnation? Back then I didn't know the way I knew now, that I wasn't crazy. "...one way or another, I wouldn't do that kind of violence to just anyone. I've seen good people, even in my critical bladework and stealth classes, that I could look at and kind of think, 'I wonder if this guy is bad'. But sometimes I also get feelings that tell me that someone is bad, and I never see any reason to doubt those. But even then, I wouldn't attack someone like that. And I waited for Joe attack me first, gave him every opportunity to walk away. He wanted to fight me, to hurt me, to see me in agony. I don't have any room in me to care about a person like that."

Louise nodded, but didn't respond immediately. I watched her scratch my phoenix, lost in the image for a moment, before she brought me back out of it. "But you understand why others don't see it like that."

"Sure. Except the reason I only got a little extra time added to my sentence was because I was right. He was a murderer, he had a history of assaulting, raping, and damn near killing other inmates in prison, and everyone watching saw that he struck first, after I warned him. I accept that I killed him, and that it was... it was murder, yeah. But fighting dungeon monsters isn't that much different, not for the one doing the killing. Yeah, they are non-entities that come back, but I still... have to kill, you know? I have to be a killer to do this job."

"And now you have to kill a human being, for real and forever, in order to save lives." She looked back at me, and met my eyes. I could feel an enormous tide of fear in my chest that wanted me to look away, but I delayed that for a long moment, wondering if she would see enough of me to understand, though I wasn't really sure what I wanted her to understand.

"No."

"No?" Louise's voice was surprised.

I took a deep breath. "It's tough to... to talk about it. But..." I let the silence stretch for a long moment, feeling that kind of weird lightheadedness that made the whole world feel empty around me. Talking about this meant real honest-to-god danger for me, and I was scared, but one way or another, she needed to know.

"...in Pearland Dungeon, there's a biome from floors twenty to twenty-four that is filled with cannibals. As long as you're winning, it doesn't matter, but if anyone dies on those floors, the monsters will try to steal your corpse and eat it, and if they do, you never come back. It takes some time, but it's unusually deadly for a zero-to-thirty dungeon. By that time I'd already killed a couple people and turned their corpses back in for resurrection. I don't... I'm not gonna say that what I did before this was innocent. It wasn't, but in the end, for all that I did evil, it wasn't harmful."

"But because I was a killer, because I was Blooded, the cannibals weren't hostile. And on floor twenty-three, there was a Hag, a miserable evil spellcasting monster that only looked human. To average, non-blooded dungeoneers, she's just a miniboss. Because I was blooded, she was an NPC. She made an offer that if I brought her a human corpse, she would open up a special store."

Of course, she was just staring at me, now, and I knew the story I was telling was a horror show in its own way. "I didn't have one on me. I'd given up the ones I had earlier. I had to go hunting. I saw two people fighting against the cannibals. I thought they were losing. Since then, I have wondered if maybe they would have been okay, but... one thing is for sure, I could have saved them, but instead I killed them both and gave the first away to see what was in that store. I gave the second away to buy something from the store, a special ability that lets me bring the dead back to life as slaves."

I felt a strong pressure in my head, and the non-disclosure agreement (as amended by Herman) popped up as though to remind me that some a specific part of the story--the one I was tempted to get to next, to make me sound a little less like a monster--was taboo. Which seemed a bit unfair in a way, because it wasn't the event that led to me getting the NDA, and the language of the NDA spoke only of that itself... but I guess the first time I humiliated the Administrator also counted? I guess it was part of "the chain of events" in a very real way. I put it out of mind, since it didn't matter.

Louise was still watching me, horrified. And that was fair, I decided.

"I've never used it on a human, but it can be done. I haven't used it at all since... well, a boss fight that came later. After a while the shock wore off and I realized what I'd done. I don't want to ever use that ability again, and I'd just as soon pretend I didn't have it. But I'm telling you this because it matters, specifically in regards to this quest and this person that I have to kill." I looked at her. "The NPC questgiver told me that we can't just Revive the guy, or he'll still be a slave to the Fairy Queen that controls him, bound to kill us and everyone else he can get his hands on. But as long as he leaves a corpse behind when he dies, I can change him to become my slave."

"But that's--"

"Horrible, psychotic, and I don't want it. I don't want a human being slave. But I do want to see this guy free, and there are only two options once he's dead--destroy the corpse, or change him. And you have a quest from a god about redeeming someone. That quest led you to me, and the Administrators have led me directly to this guy, with all of the tools needed to let you redeem him."

Louise had her mouth a little agape, but as she followed my logic, she snapped her mouth shut all of a sudden. She thought about it for a long time, and then said, "...from what I understand, most of the God-given quests are a lot simpler than that. They are small things that a Priestess can accomplish on her own or with any given party. So... I don't think that--"

"I don't care about that," I said suddenly, forcing myself to stand up and walk over to her. She suddenly got stiff, like I scared her now just by being there, but I just sat down on the other bed, facing her. "Your god believes you have what it takes to redeem people, and Louise, I have faith that you can do that. You're a good person, and everyone who sees you knows it. But I... I don't feel any personal need for redemption, or rather, I don't need anyone else to accept me in spite of my sins. I made a mistake and paid for it, but this guy? The bad things that happened to him aren't his fault. He seems to be a tool being used to do something awful. If he feels half as guilty as I did back then--and he has to feel more guilty than I did back then, from all the killing he's done--and if it isn't his fault, then he deserves a chance to be free from that."

"But me? No, fuck me," I insisted, reaching out and taking her hand. "Louise, I did those crimes, and I accept them as crimes and as sins. I don't give a shit if any god does or does not deem me redeemed, redeemable, or worthy in any way. I repented, and if they don't care, fuck them. Give him that chance. Set him free, if he's worthy of it. We won't know until we get there--hell, maybe he's really a monster and I'm wrong. But that's how I want this to go. I'll kill him, with help if I can get it, and bring him back. And you..."

"But what if... what if I can't?" Louise's eyes had been tearing up, and now all of a sudden they started spilling, and her voice started to crack. "What if I can't save him? What if--"

"I know you can do it, and I'll do everything I can to help," I insisted. "I'm sure others will, too. Even if we have to lie to others about who he is and where he came from, we can save him from a terrible fate. We can give him a chance to live again, so that his life isn't screwed up by something that isn't his fault."

"But I'm..." Louise couldn't quite keep her eyes open, as they overflowed with tears. "I'm not that... I'm not a good Priestess, Jerry, I'm just not. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't even really..."

I stepped forward and put my arms around her, holding her against me as she started crying. A small cooing noise and some gentle synthesized music from the table reminded us both that Smokin' Hot was still there, and in spite of her tears Louise smiled a small, tight smile, as she put one hand on my back to return the hug, and the other reached out to give the phoenix an appreciative little rub.

"We'll get through this," I insisted, which was more confidence than I had for my own part in this by far. "We'll be alright. We--we can save this guy from a terrible fate. That's all we can do, is try. Okay?"

Louise gave the kind of really wet sniffle that I thought meant she was probably dribbling snot all over the front of my shirt, but I didn't care.

The two of us only needed one bed that night, though it wasn't a fun or exciting night by any means.