Soulforged Dungeoneer

I wish that someone had done for me, what I am doing for you, dear reader: I won't force you to live through an additional five hours of extremely boring questions and answers from government officials.

Suffice it to say, nothing got done.

Oh, there were little tidbits of useful information that slipped out. For example, when I mentioned that the information the gods leaked was censored--redacted was the technical term, I was told--they asked me questions that eventually narrowed in on the fact that the documents I was receiving were some kind of official copies of an original document; Ethanic had not been custom-generating things that told us what he wanted us to know. That was interesting, but it probably took a half hour to suss out and there was more time afterwards consumed by people making theories that Merry gave evidence in favor of or against, with me stuck in the middle as a mouthpiece.

There was also one person who, I realized, was actually kind of brave in taking up the committee's limited time to ask if we had any other information about the other civilizations that the key had visited. The document Merry had seen was more than just a counter; it had something like names and coordinates, but even if she'd been able to capture the information--and she wasn't--it wasn't necessarily useful. Merry did note that there was some kind of description of the species of each planet, and each had been at least vaguely like humanoid; not necessarily "two arms, two legs" humanoid, but within the ballpark. No giant tentacled slime creatures, no pegasus, no sea monsters, just tool-using land-walking creatures, mostly with two feet.

I noted that some people seemed to react to that news. While I thought it was interesting, I didn't see any reason to be upset by it, and at least one or two among the Dungoneer group seemed to be confused or upset, though they didn't say anything, and I didn't ask.

There were also a substantial number of questions about Administrators and the Full Clear Quests. Interestingly, a lot of that information was redacted in the information given to Merry. Several people came back to, for instance, what exactly the role of an Administrator was. While yes, they were there to arrange the dungeons and... administrate them, could they create custom creatures and items on demand? Was that power given to a deeper, more powerful entity?

Ethanic had, I guess, deliberately chosen not to tell us. It didn't surprise me, not after that thing about corruption. Privately (and I did keep this to myself), I guessed that the Administrator really could do that, and that was a very good reason to keep that power away from the unworthy.

Similarly, we weren't told anything about what it meant to gain the approval of administrators and gods. They asked me some questions about my own history, but Mr. Flour forced that discussion to end to make sure that we didn't miss anything from today. Of course, given that I couldn't tell them everything, given the NDA, that was helped along quite a bit--I used it as an arguably very good excuse for not telling them anything at all, because I frankly didn't want to. I trusted the group a lot less after the talk with Ethanic than before, and I especially distrusted those among the group who seemed to be acting business-as-usual about the whole thing.

The crowd got shorter as time went on. The Vice President didn't stay long after Ethanic departed, and Cream apparently needed the rest of the day off to recover, because she didn't do anything after the god left except sit in a chair, drink several bottles of something, and then walk slowly out. With them gone, a lot of the guards left, except only the two who had been directly by me. Of those who were left, there seemed to be factions of each of the three major groups--military, politicians, and Dungeoneers--and some of each were after power, or answers, or just taking notes, or seemingly uninterested.

The ones who seemed to still be asking questions about how to do things were the most suspect, in my mind. There was plenty to be curious about, and I could respect that, to a degree. Rushing candidates to positions of power, to make sure it's their people in that position instead of someone else, or just to be the first... I didn't like that.

One way or another, by the end of the day, I was exhausted. They asked me to voluntarily come back the next day, but I refused. In my eyes, the only takeaway from the whole thing was this: people who were being offered Full Clear quests should be encouraged to take them, at least now while nobody was gaming the system. Though... why exactly I ended up on that list was unclear.

Well, a lot of things were unclear, honestly.

I had a call with Louise in the evening and we talked for a little while. My voice wasn't hoarse or anything--a Dungoneer wouldn't have that kind of weakness--but after all of that stress, I really did just kind of want to sleep it off. I also used my portable messaging terminal to send a note to Harry, although if he was in prison or something, he'd probably not get it until he got out anyway, and by then he just might show up and ask in person.

He didn't show up that day, or the next morning, though, and when someone showed up and asked me if I was interested in staying and becoming part of an ongoing government task force, I very politely told them I just wanted to go home. He spoke to some people and gave me a phone number to call when I was ready to depart. I considered just running off then and there, but felt odd about it. Although I didn't feel at home here...

Well, I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that I had some interest in the nation's capital.

I ended up taking an Uber to the metro, and from there over to the National Mall--the big area with all the memorials, nearby the Smithsonian, and not that far from the White House. I was a little concerned that there would be some checkpoints or something, because there had been some small acts of violence by Dungoneers in the capitol that had been very well covered by the news at the time, but aside from a bunch of people with levels clearly stationed as guards, things were peaceful.

I looked over at the White House, trying to see if I could spot the place where the fence had been melted, but I guess it was repaired. It was a while ago, anyway. Why would they leave it damaged? I guess I just wondered if I could tell where it was, and I really couldn't.

I walked from one end of the Mall and back, thinking that I might leave it at that. I had just a little interest in the museums, not because I was into museums, but because it was the Smithsonian... but no, I decided against it after a while.

The thing that made me finally stop, though, was my spiritual sense acting up. Even now, it was distinct form my telekinetic and other senses, if still annoyingly vague, but I stopped and looked... I guess southwest-ish, not really sure what was bothering me, except that something was. It wasn't a persistent thing, either; things had been normal, and then a heady presence seemed to come over me, not intense enough to count as an attack, but definitely something abnormal.

I looked in what was probably the general direction of a ghost or something, checking what I sensed against my telekientic senses, but if there was any sign of what happened in that sense, it was like a few threads of spidersilk blowing in the wind. Which, to be fair, was... kind of a description of what they looked like when I tried to use my eyes, too--a faint outline you could just barely perceive, in the dark, rather than anything useful.

"Something the matter?"

I turned to the speaker and found a very professional-looking man--not a dungeoneer--who had kind of a strange look on his face. He wasn't concerned, wasn't being rude, wasn't some kind of guard... I stared at him for a moment longer than I should have, probably, and then decided to gamble.

"Just a ghost," I said, as casually as I could muster, and looked back at the disturbance. The spiritual pressure continued to radiate a sense of disapproval or something, and I studied it, wondering just why I had drawn its attention.

"You believe in ghosts?" I frowned at the tone of the man's voice. Again, it was off. He didn't seem curious, confused...

I turned to look at him, narrowing my eyes. His manner continued to be very flat, unassuming. More than anything else, I thought, he seemed to be trying to act like nothing was wrong. That was concerning because nothing was wrong; there should be no need to act like it. That left me with three plausible answers: He was crazy, this was a trap, or...

"Is this some kind of test?"

He turned his head slightly and looked at me, smirking a little. "I don't know what you mean."

"I mean you starting a conversation the moment it shows up." I looked him up and down, studying what my telekinetic sense told me as carefully as I could, wondering if I'd find some kind of secret-society sigil ring or pin or something on him, but there was exactly nothing--not even, I realized with some confusion, a wallet. A key in his pocket, and some petty cash. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Nobody interesting." He put his hands in his pockets nonchalantly and took half a step back. "Not like you. I heard you had some ...interesting theories, and you've confirmed that. I had to see what you believed, for myself."

Great, so, if it wasn't a test, it was a trap, because he knew who I was. I glanced around, forcing myself to take note of normal people rather close by than just Dungeoneers, wondering exactly what the hell kind of situation I was walking into. Nothing was obviously wrong, but... were there some people suspiciously uninterested? I considered raising shields, but... would the Dungeoneers on guard take notice of that? Did I want them to?

"...What exactly do you want?" Already it was clear that things worked differently here than they did in suburban Texas. I doubted this would end up with me murdered in an alleyway, but there were too many creepy things for me to believe it was going to be harmless.

"What everyone wants." His face seemed to relax into an expression that was a textbook example of 'resting bitch face'. The skin around his eyes and mouth were pinched and wrinked in a way that suggested he spent most of his time glaring and frowning at people, giving everyone a consistent look of disapproval that he had to explicitly reshape his face to hide. After a moment, he seemed to catch himself and smooth that expression away again. "I want to live in a world where people like me have power. Aren't you the same?"

I considered what to say to that, and after a long moment, frowned at him. "I don't think that's how I'd put it."

He crossed his arms behind his back and put on an expression of polite interest that I was pretty sure was fake.

I hadn't really ever tried to put it into words before, though, so it took a moment of thinking about. "There's nothing about myself that I consider... ideal." That thought didn't seem right, so I stopped again, and shook my head. "Isn't the point that the people in charge should be ideal rather than necessarily like me? I don't live up to my own ideals most of the time."

"The issue is trust," the man replied. "How can we trust people to do the right thing when they don't understand us? When they don't understand the truth?"

I realized after a moment that he had to be using 'us' in this context to refer to some specific kind of people--spiritualists, occultists, psychics, who knows exactly the details. "Which truth?"

His face opened up into a cracked smile. And not slightly cracked--I would say he looked insane. "The truth. That humanity can do this on our own. That this is all a poison pill we are asked to swallow. We knew before that aliens were taking an interest in our people, experimenting on us. We knew they were the enemy, come to slaughter us like sheep. Now our dead are nothing but fuel for a demonic furnace that runs on souls."

He stepped entirely too close, and grabbed my arms, and it was only morbid curiosity about what he was going to say next that kept me from throwing him off--that, and a strange headache that seemed to get worse when he got close.

"I've seen it," he whispered hoarsely, as though he was afraid of some passer-by overhearing. "In my dreams, a man ten feet tall, no more than a pile of bloody corpses wrapped in an ill-fitting skin, thin as death and inhuman to his bones. Black his skin is, and his eyes are lanterns in the night, his fingers like knives, and the dead within him scream to be released. And his voice, his horrible voice..." the man clasped his hands to his head. "It's no more than a screech, and yet I hear it, know it. It tells me to kill him, to free him from the chains that hold him in place. It tells me..."

I pushed the man away, my Dungeoneer strength more than enough to overpower the lunatic even without my signature skills. "You're insane," I said, in what seemed like an apt summary. "Look--ghosts are real, at the very least, and there may be other real things. And, there are all kinds of monsters in the dungeons. But--"

"This is not some everyday fodder-puppet," snarled the man in return, and again, his face seemed warped from confusion and determined, single-minded faith. "This is a king, and his crown is a shackle, a monster born to repress humanity, a cruel thing created to become a nightmare." His voice took on an odd timbre, and his eyes got faraway. "The true number is Seven--there are seven devils that seal the door. Seven becomes forty-two before the one. I have seen the truth. Do you understand? Do you?"

I, uh, basically walked away from him at that point. As I did, I noticed that the ...spiritual thing that was there was just kind of hanging there, reasonably close by. It didn't chase me, and neither did the crazy man. I... I wasn't mentally prepared to try to wade through a conspiracy theorist's mind looking for nuggets of truth. Goodness knows I had my own problems to deal with.

"If I figure it out," I shouted at him as I rapidly backed away, "I'll let you know, I promise." Not that I'd ever find the loopy bastard again, I reasoned as I turned and moved off.

If anything, Merry seemed to have been affected by the exchange the most. I didn't realize it until I was at the airport waiting for the jet, and when I realized she had become more quiet than usual, I mentally prodded her. You okay?

There, uh, there's a thing with seven in the master key, I think.

I frowned, at least somewhat thankful that nobody around knew what was going through my head. Seven what?

I don't know. It's not like I can get a good look at it. I can only just vaguely peek at it when I focus on your engine; it's really big and really far away. But there are seven somethings on it. Holes, maybe? It's complicated. And I feel like there were a couple places in the God-dude's redacted documents that had, like, lists that were seven entries long.

I considered that for a long minute, and when the stewardess from the charter flight came to say that they were ready for me to board, I nudged Merry. Should we go back and try to find the guy?

Nah. I mean look, it's interesting that a ...uh, non-Dungeon guy gets hints like that, right? But I don't think it's going to help us with anything we are going to be doing. How could it?

I nodded for a moment, then refocused on the woman in front of me and smiled. "Alright, lead the way."

First, to home. And then, soon, on to talk with another Dungeon God, and then... well, then I had to prepare for a fight. And what came after that, if I even survived, would depend on the answers I got from all of that bullshit. If somehow I survived all of that, well, maybe I'd go searching through the millions of people in the DC Metro area and see if I could find that one crazy guy again.