Porting a Quest over from SB.
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This is a Dungeon Keeper...
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This is a Dungeon Keeper...
Capes and Keepers (Worm x Dungeon Keeper Ami Quest)
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Porting a Quest over from SB.
This is a Dungeon Keeper Ami and Worm Crossover Quest.
Worm is a well known Web Serial by Wildbow that all the cool kids are writing fanfic about down in the Creative Writing forum. It's about unconventional heroism, bullying and the end of the world.
Dungeon Keeper Ami is itself a crossover between Dungeon Keeper and Sailor Moon and an epic-length fanfic by Pusakuronu that you can find on addventure. For a summary, trope page, and link to some convenient downloads head on to the TvTropes page here.
I'd post a longer introduction, but time is not my ally and I'm a little swamped. So, without further ado, please:
CHOOSE YOUR KEEPER:
[] Taylor Hebert
-[] Trigger Event
-[] Skitter
-[] Weaver
-[] Khepri
[] Brian Laborn
- [] Trigger Event
- [] Grue
- [] Second Trigger Event
- [] Oil Rig
[] Sarah Livsey
- [] Trigger Event
- [] Tattletale
- [] post-Skitter
- [] post-Golden Dawn
[] Jean-Paul Vasil
- [] Hijack
- [] Alec
- [] Regent
- [] Behemoth
[] Rachel Lindt
- [] Trigger Event
- [] Bitch
- [] Brave New World
- [] post-Golden Dawn
[] Aisha Laborn
- [] Trigger Event
- [] Trapped by the Nine
- [] Hunting down Heartbreaker
- [] post-Golden Dawn
[] Write-in*
(*I reserve the right to veto anyone that could trivially break the setting, i.e. most tinkers, the Triumvirate, Echidna, Nilbolg, Panacea, Lung, etc. as well as those that would be fiendishly difficult to write like Accord or Coil)
CHOOSE YOUR BOON:
[] Synchronization – your powers and your Dungeon Heart feed off each other - mana can be produced by shutting off your power, and your power can be temporarily supercharged with an infusion of mana (this boon is not available to Thinkers or Khepri)
[] Comprehension – activating the Dungeon Heart gives you full understanding of its capabilities as well as a primer on spell and magecraft
[] Dark Favor – your arrival has been prophecied to bring ruin to this planet, you begin with the tacit support and approval of the Dark Gods
[] Blessing of the Light –yourarrival has been noted by the Light, and though they may not agree with your methods, they have deemed you worthy of the greatest gift of all: forgiveness and understanding
CHOOSE YOUR CURSE:
[] Feeble – whether in mind or body you have been worn down by the events that have plagued you.
[] Antagonistic – whether it is your shard, or the past few years that have shaped you, you automatically move to fight, even if it is not the ideal move
[] Unlucky – no matter how hard you try, you never seem able to catch a break
[] Mined out – there is hardly any gold in the region you begin, sharply limiting your ability to carve out a dungeon or hire new troops
CHOOSE YOUR DIFFICULTY:
[] Easy – you replace Ami as a Dungeon Keeper, she returns home
[] Moderate – Ami is present, either as a fellow dungeon keeper, or a hero of the Light
[] Hard – You become co-Dungeon Keepers BUT you start with the two curses with the topmost votes AND shit will start raining from the sky. On the plus side, you have Ami.
___________________________________
This is a Dungeon Keeper Ami and Worm Crossover Quest.
Worm is a well known Web Serial by Wildbow that all the cool kids are writing fanfic about down in the Creative Writing forum. It's about unconventional heroism, bullying and the end of the world.
Dungeon Keeper Ami is itself a crossover between Dungeon Keeper and Sailor Moon and an epic-length fanfic by Pusakuronu that you can find on addventure. For a summary, trope page, and link to some convenient downloads head on to the TvTropes page here.
I'd post a longer introduction, but time is not my ally and I'm a little swamped. So, without further ado, please:
CHOOSE YOUR KEEPER:
[] Taylor Hebert
-[] Trigger Event
-[] Skitter
-[] Weaver
-[] Khepri
[] Brian Laborn
- [] Trigger Event
- [] Grue
- [] Second Trigger Event
- [] Oil Rig
[] Sarah Livsey
- [] Trigger Event
- [] Tattletale
- [] post-Skitter
- [] post-Golden Dawn
[] Jean-Paul Vasil
- [] Hijack
- [] Alec
- [] Regent
- [] Behemoth
[] Rachel Lindt
- [] Trigger Event
- [] Bitch
- [] Brave New World
- [] post-Golden Dawn
[] Aisha Laborn
- [] Trigger Event
- [] Trapped by the Nine
- [] Hunting down Heartbreaker
- [] post-Golden Dawn
[] Write-in*
(*I reserve the right to veto anyone that could trivially break the setting, i.e. most tinkers, the Triumvirate, Echidna, Nilbolg, Panacea, Lung, etc. as well as those that would be fiendishly difficult to write like Accord or Coil)
CHOOSE YOUR BOON:
[] Synchronization – your powers and your Dungeon Heart feed off each other - mana can be produced by shutting off your power, and your power can be temporarily supercharged with an infusion of mana (this boon is not available to Thinkers or Khepri)
[] Comprehension – activating the Dungeon Heart gives you full understanding of its capabilities as well as a primer on spell and magecraft
[] Dark Favor – your arrival has been prophecied to bring ruin to this planet, you begin with the tacit support and approval of the Dark Gods
[] Blessing of the Light –yourarrival has been noted by the Light, and though they may not agree with your methods, they have deemed you worthy of the greatest gift of all: forgiveness and understanding
CHOOSE YOUR CURSE:
[] Feeble – whether in mind or body you have been worn down by the events that have plagued you.
[] Antagonistic – whether it is your shard, or the past few years that have shaped you, you automatically move to fight, even if it is not the ideal move
[] Unlucky – no matter how hard you try, you never seem able to catch a break
[] Mined out – there is hardly any gold in the region you begin, sharply limiting your ability to carve out a dungeon or hire new troops
CHOOSE YOUR DIFFICULTY:
[] Easy – you replace Ami as a Dungeon Keeper, she returns home
[] Moderate – Ami is present, either as a fellow dungeon keeper, or a hero of the Light
[] Hard – You become co-Dungeon Keepers BUT you start with the two curses with the topmost votes AND shit will start raining from the sky. On the plus side, you have Ami.
Last edited:
Reserved
[ACTIVATION 1.1]
I woke slowly. I remember… I remembered being shot. Back of the head.
It had seemed like such a small thing at the time.
I opened my eyes. Darkness. Pain, but not the sort to be expected after surviving a bullet. I looked further, trying to get a sense of my surroundings with my power. Something was in my radius, humanoid but not human. A Case 53? I couldn't spare the attention I would require to figure it out. He had been injured and then knocked unconscious with tremendous force judging by his enhanced durability. Not an immediate asset.
"You have a choice to make, Taylor Hebert," a voice said softly. The harmonics were strange, like she wasn't speaking in an open place. Her voice was familiar. A known quantity. The one I would never beat. The one who had shot me.
I knew she would be out of my range. Still had to resist the urge to look for her, take her.
"Choice?" I asked weakly.
"Between retirement and a continuation. Possibly even a resolution."
I didn't understand.
"There is a path to retain your powers. A path that would not give you the tools to become Khepri once more, but remain something… human."
I wanted it. Wanted it with an urgency I found startling, even alarming.
Was that desire mine? Or my Passenger's? Was there even an appreciable difference, at this point?
"There is a drawback, a cost" she continued. She hit something, and a sound reverberated through the air. Metallic, like a gong or a church bell. "This is a device with several basic properties. All of them contribute, for lack of a better word, towards 'evil.' In the interim, it will grant you a limited form of immortality and, more importantly for you, arrest any continued mental degradation."
Not sure if I liked the sound of that. 'Evil.'
"How… bad?" I asked.
"It will slowly corrupt the environment. Claim your 'soul' upon death, if you believe in such a thing, a 'copy' of your mind if you do not."
I tried to process that.
"Like… like fairy queen?"
Talking was getting easier, but names were still frustratingly out of my reach.
"Very much like Glaistig Uaine."
"Ah."
"Those that do the 'claiming' are gods, beings of cosmic might. They seek ingress into this world via this mechanism and extend their influence through it in the meantime."
I tried to parse that, but the image was less Scion trying to toy with Earth and more Faust bargaining with the Devil. Inexplicably biblical. It didn't really compute.
All I knew for sure was: "Cost… bad."
I could feel her nod, even if I couldn't see her. Bizarre. We didn't know each other that well. "It is already being paid, several times over. There are thousands of these devices on this planet, hundreds of them active. You can do good here," she said, without irony or expectation. "The activation of this one will not make a material difference one way or another to the fate of this planet. It is your choice."
I understood, and I didn't.
"Choice?" I repeated.
"Yes. I can bring you back. To Aleph or Gimel or some other world where damage is more limited. You would live out your life as Taylor Hebert."
I understood then. "No powers."
"No. Not without death within the month."
I wanted to rest. I wanted so badly to slip away and sleep.
But there was something else. Fear, perhaps? I'd lived so long with it that it was hard disentangling it from the rest of my thoughts. It was an impulse. A simple, irrational push. I couldn't be… I couldn't just be powerless. Not again.
As motivations went, it probably wasn't the purest.
"Will I?" I asked in a very small voice.
It wasn't a complete question, but she understood anyway.
"Do good? Be good? Maybe. I'd rather not look, not for something like this. It is… hard, not using this power. Not using it to see. To be sure, to be safe. But I think it's necessary. For change to happen."
I understood, on a level.
"My father? Friends?" I asked. I was relieved that I remembered them now.
"Your friends are preparing for their own role in what is to come. Your father is safe as I can make him," she paused and said, not unkindly: "You can join him, if you wish."
"Thank you," I murmured. At the scales that we operated at, had been operating at, my dad was a footnote. Less than that, maybe. And she had still taken the time to think of him. More than I had done while on the clock and fighting Scion. Then again, maybe it had been one of the many steps to a victory condition she had chosen. It might have even been a lie. I couldn't know.
Even so, if it were my choice, here and now…
"Let me help."
A whisper, a plea.
She nodded.
"The process is simple. The activation requires blood, will and power. The first has come from your wounds, the last your shard. But the choice must be yours."
I chose.
Something went wrong.
I could feel the difference. Something was unfolding in the back of my brain, and then tore its way out of my forehead, ghostly and insubstantial. Like a layer of cells, it blossomed tendrils extending for something, anything. And then a gray, glassy crystal exploded out, slamming into the ground twenty feet away with enough force to send rock and stone shooting into the air. I nearly lost consciousness. I felt weightless - was weightless, my body slowly rising.
A portal opened, maybe twenty feet away its presence unrelated to the activation of the device. Hexagonal holes in reality filling in with bright sunlight. I saw my surroundings for the first time, walls made of rock and dirt. I could see her too, her immaculate white suit still pristine, a tinker tech device held in her hand.
"Please," I said, struck by a sudden, childish impulse, "please don't... don't tell my dad."
My voice was too quiet to carry, my words barely whispers compared to the thrum of energy from the device. She turned to me, nodded ever so slightly and stepped through.
The portal collapsed behind her.
I felt more than a mere shadow of feeling.
There was another burst of energy from the device, a sound like bells, and this time I closed my eyes and let myself slip away.
________________________________________
I woke faster, this time.
I felt... better. More whole. I could concentrate, could focus. If I had to ballpark it, I'd say I was at around fifty, maybe even sixty percent. Better than before, but I still wasn't sure if I could read or not. Perhaps that could be the litmus test, a gauge of how far I'd come, how much further I still needed to go.
Petty as it was, I really wanted to be able to read again.
I pushed outward, testing my senses, keeping my eyes closed, holding myself back from receiving too much stimuli. I would play this safe, walk before I tried to run.
There was a lack of obvious insect life, but I found four new presences in my range, each about the size of a small child. I frowned. However, they weren't the priority: the big guy was.
The pseudo-Case-53 was still lying on the ground where he'd been shot, blood dripping from both knees. A quick look with my power confirmed that he was already on the mend: the bullets had gone through cleanly and he had some sort of regenerative ability that wasn't directly tied to a shard but rather his physiological makeup. He'd be fine. Like before, I got the distinct sense he wasn't human. If I had to guess, I'd say he was closer to something like Nilbog's creations, except much more complex, much more refined.
Another species altogether, maybe? I was in a different dimension, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.
I probably should have asked Contessa why she had shot him. The obvious conclusion was that he was hostile. The question was: was that hostility warranted or not? Had we intruded on his territory in claiming this device? Was he a guardian of some sort? Was I off the mark completely, was he in fact a Case-53, imprisoned here alongside me?
It probably said something bad about me that thinking about him as if he were a problem to be solved gave me a push, a boost of sorts. I felt more like me, more like Taylor Hebert, or Skitter, or Weaver, rather than Khepri. Was that why Contessa had left him there? A living prop to shore up my flagging morale?
Worse, was it working?
I shook my head. I was getting distracted, being suspicious and introspective during a time I should have been focusing outwards, using my time to scout the area and get a feel for what my priorities should be. It would be deeply ironic if I kept my powers and died of something as banal as thirst or starvation. Contessa hadn't exactly left a step-by-step manual on how to survive in this world, or much in the way of specifics on this 'evil device' I had activated. Would it poison nearby water sources? Kill crops and animals? Or was the corruption more insidious, something like a disease or worse, the Simurgh? She had mentioned 'influence' after all.
Perhaps I could find a way to de-activate it. Later, once I was sure such an action wouldn't send my brain dribbling out of my ears.
I had too many questions, too few answers. Frustrating. I'd had Tattletale, then the Protectorate, then both. Now I was flying blind, both figuratively and literally.
I zeroed in on the new presences, more than ready for a more practical distraction. They were childlike, both in stature and mental acuity. Distressed by my power's automatically imposed stillness, they kept trying to move, and kept failing. Feeling them push with such simple-minded regularity, unable to even conceptualize the idea that they were stuck and had to consider some other means of tackling the problem made me feel bad for them in the same way I might have felt bad for a dog or a cat that had been caught with their paw in a mousetrap.
I would have even assumed they were animals, if not for the fact that I could tell they were holding tools of some kind.
I opened my eyes.
I was in a largish room, eighteen to twenty feet across. Leading away from the room was a blocky, square-shaped corridor, beyond it, the device. Even from here, it was like I could feel it, maybe thirty-forty feet away. Without my swarmsense it was harder to judge distances. Torches had been lit along the walls at regular intervals. A consequence of the device's activation? Some other factor? Regardless, I would need to douse them as soon as it was practical: dying from easily preventable asphyxiation or smoke inhalation would be embarrassing. I didn't smell smoke so there likely wasn't an immediate need to be elsewhere, but I'd rather discover that they burned fuel and produced light without using oxygen, than discover the inverse when I started getting light-headed.
Dominating a significant section of the room was the pseudo Case-53. He looked like a Christian's idea of the devil, except grotesquely muscular, almost to the point of a caricature. It was as if someone had made a checklist and gone down the bullet points: hooves, horns, fanged maw, bright red skin. All he needed was a pitchfork and a pointy tail to complete the effect. He was also tall, well over seven feet not counting the ridiculous conical horns that sprouted out the top of his head and muscled to the point it was a off-putting. I turned my attention away from him.
In contrast, the four new arrivals were maybe three feet tall, each holding a pickaxe and a rucksack as big as they were. I consciously refrained from calling them dwarves. I couldn't honestly say if they were ugly or cute. Their eyes were huge and pitch black, their heads bulbous and misshapen, skin closer to orange than beige. But for all that there was a certain... charm to their appearance.
Then again, insects didn't bother me much either. My sense of aesthetics, I had been repeatedly and reliably informed, were a little off.
I carefully herded them out of my range. It was weird. Difficult.
I was so used to everything being automatic, the necessity to operate everything consciously was grating. It felt unnecessary, felt dangerous. Like I suddenly had to focus on each muscle of my legs before I could walk. Already the experience of fighting against Scion was bubbling to the surface, reminding me I had to lose focus, input commands to my Passenger and have it carry out the tasks rather than try to do everything myself.
Small steps, I reminded myself. Besides, this wasn't a fight. I painstakingly guided them out.
"Sorry about that - can you understand me?" I asked, just before they left.
The moment they stepped out of my range, they relaxed. I all but saw them deflate, slouching over so that their small stature was made even shorter. For a moment they chittered among themselves, turned to look at me, chittered again and then scampered off, with what sounded like giggles. I couldn't be sure, given that they were essentially aliens, but their body language didn't suggest they were particularly traumatized by their experience.
I debated following them and staying here with the red-skinned cape before realizing that I could still sense them.
Past sixteen feet it was like my power had switched onto a different setting. My control was still present, but much less direct. I could sense them, and give general commands, but it wasn't to the same extent as within my 'primary' range. The... creatures were clearly in control of their own actions, even my commands were not completely absolute, I could tell there was some leeway in interpretation. Was my power expanding in scope? Was I gradually assuming permanent control of whoever I came into contact with?
Not a positive development, exactly. If I had a choice, I would rather be able to turn it off.
Still, it was a tool. With an effort, I tried to look through their eyes-
-and blinked as a bird's eye view of the entire area replaced my normal vision.
I couldn't explain it. This wasn't part of my power, wasn't even a power related to my power. I had to assume it was a product of the device, though how it was doing this I wasn't sure. Was I being changed, somehow?
The perspective, the awarenesswas almost comforting though. Not my swarmsense, but a close enough substitute. The area – underground structure, really – I was in had a simple enough layout, a central chamber where the device lay, its metal shell beating like a massive orange heart. Connected to it via short corridors – so short they might as well have been doorways – were three chambers, each positioned at right angles relative to the central chamber. If I considered myself to be in the 'North' chamber, then East and West were both empty and South hadn't been excavated at all. The... helpers had started wandering around the Eastern chamber and were hopping up and down, perhaps enraged that they hadn't yet found an exit.
I furrowed my brow. Despite my sudden shift in perspective and awareness, I hadn't found an exit either. Alarming, if true. It made me wonder how any of the others had entered this place.
I felt it then. A tug on my awareness.
I turned and found a baleful orange eye staring at me mutely
Ah. The 'devil' was awake.
________________________________________
How do you handle the pseudo-Case-53?
[] Let him out of your range to talk to him
[] Keep him in your range, attend to other matters
[] Write-in
What would you like to examine most?
[] The helpers
[] The device
[] The pseudo-case-53
[] Your powers
[] Write-in
You feel you really have to...
[] Eat
[] Drink
[] Rest
[] Explore
What will you do about the torches?
[] Extinguish them yourself
[] Get the 'helpers' to knock them down (somehow)
[] Get the pseudo-Case-53 to do it
[] Ignore the problem for now
[] Write-in
What are your plans/goals? (OPTIONAL)
[] Write-in (e.g.: saving the world, becoming a warmer person, getting back home, etc.)
I woke slowly. I remember… I remembered being shot. Back of the head.
It had seemed like such a small thing at the time.
I opened my eyes. Darkness. Pain, but not the sort to be expected after surviving a bullet. I looked further, trying to get a sense of my surroundings with my power. Something was in my radius, humanoid but not human. A Case 53? I couldn't spare the attention I would require to figure it out. He had been injured and then knocked unconscious with tremendous force judging by his enhanced durability. Not an immediate asset.
"You have a choice to make, Taylor Hebert," a voice said softly. The harmonics were strange, like she wasn't speaking in an open place. Her voice was familiar. A known quantity. The one I would never beat. The one who had shot me.
I knew she would be out of my range. Still had to resist the urge to look for her, take her.
"Choice?" I asked weakly.
"Between retirement and a continuation. Possibly even a resolution."
I didn't understand.
"There is a path to retain your powers. A path that would not give you the tools to become Khepri once more, but remain something… human."
I wanted it. Wanted it with an urgency I found startling, even alarming.
Was that desire mine? Or my Passenger's? Was there even an appreciable difference, at this point?
"There is a drawback, a cost" she continued. She hit something, and a sound reverberated through the air. Metallic, like a gong or a church bell. "This is a device with several basic properties. All of them contribute, for lack of a better word, towards 'evil.' In the interim, it will grant you a limited form of immortality and, more importantly for you, arrest any continued mental degradation."
Not sure if I liked the sound of that. 'Evil.'
"How… bad?" I asked.
"It will slowly corrupt the environment. Claim your 'soul' upon death, if you believe in such a thing, a 'copy' of your mind if you do not."
I tried to process that.
"Like… like fairy queen?"
Talking was getting easier, but names were still frustratingly out of my reach.
"Very much like Glaistig Uaine."
"Ah."
"Those that do the 'claiming' are gods, beings of cosmic might. They seek ingress into this world via this mechanism and extend their influence through it in the meantime."
I tried to parse that, but the image was less Scion trying to toy with Earth and more Faust bargaining with the Devil. Inexplicably biblical. It didn't really compute.
All I knew for sure was: "Cost… bad."
I could feel her nod, even if I couldn't see her. Bizarre. We didn't know each other that well. "It is already being paid, several times over. There are thousands of these devices on this planet, hundreds of them active. You can do good here," she said, without irony or expectation. "The activation of this one will not make a material difference one way or another to the fate of this planet. It is your choice."
I understood, and I didn't.
"Choice?" I repeated.
"Yes. I can bring you back. To Aleph or Gimel or some other world where damage is more limited. You would live out your life as Taylor Hebert."
I understood then. "No powers."
"No. Not without death within the month."
I wanted to rest. I wanted so badly to slip away and sleep.
But there was something else. Fear, perhaps? I'd lived so long with it that it was hard disentangling it from the rest of my thoughts. It was an impulse. A simple, irrational push. I couldn't be… I couldn't just be powerless. Not again.
As motivations went, it probably wasn't the purest.
"Will I?" I asked in a very small voice.
It wasn't a complete question, but she understood anyway.
"Do good? Be good? Maybe. I'd rather not look, not for something like this. It is… hard, not using this power. Not using it to see. To be sure, to be safe. But I think it's necessary. For change to happen."
I understood, on a level.
"My father? Friends?" I asked. I was relieved that I remembered them now.
"Your friends are preparing for their own role in what is to come. Your father is safe as I can make him," she paused and said, not unkindly: "You can join him, if you wish."
"Thank you," I murmured. At the scales that we operated at, had been operating at, my dad was a footnote. Less than that, maybe. And she had still taken the time to think of him. More than I had done while on the clock and fighting Scion. Then again, maybe it had been one of the many steps to a victory condition she had chosen. It might have even been a lie. I couldn't know.
Even so, if it were my choice, here and now…
"Let me help."
A whisper, a plea.
She nodded.
"The process is simple. The activation requires blood, will and power. The first has come from your wounds, the last your shard. But the choice must be yours."
I chose.
Something went wrong.
I could feel the difference. Something was unfolding in the back of my brain, and then tore its way out of my forehead, ghostly and insubstantial. Like a layer of cells, it blossomed tendrils extending for something, anything. And then a gray, glassy crystal exploded out, slamming into the ground twenty feet away with enough force to send rock and stone shooting into the air. I nearly lost consciousness. I felt weightless - was weightless, my body slowly rising.
A portal opened, maybe twenty feet away its presence unrelated to the activation of the device. Hexagonal holes in reality filling in with bright sunlight. I saw my surroundings for the first time, walls made of rock and dirt. I could see her too, her immaculate white suit still pristine, a tinker tech device held in her hand.
"Please," I said, struck by a sudden, childish impulse, "please don't... don't tell my dad."
My voice was too quiet to carry, my words barely whispers compared to the thrum of energy from the device. She turned to me, nodded ever so slightly and stepped through.
The portal collapsed behind her.
I felt more than a mere shadow of feeling.
There was another burst of energy from the device, a sound like bells, and this time I closed my eyes and let myself slip away.
________________________________________
I woke faster, this time.
I felt... better. More whole. I could concentrate, could focus. If I had to ballpark it, I'd say I was at around fifty, maybe even sixty percent. Better than before, but I still wasn't sure if I could read or not. Perhaps that could be the litmus test, a gauge of how far I'd come, how much further I still needed to go.
Petty as it was, I really wanted to be able to read again.
I pushed outward, testing my senses, keeping my eyes closed, holding myself back from receiving too much stimuli. I would play this safe, walk before I tried to run.
There was a lack of obvious insect life, but I found four new presences in my range, each about the size of a small child. I frowned. However, they weren't the priority: the big guy was.
The pseudo-Case-53 was still lying on the ground where he'd been shot, blood dripping from both knees. A quick look with my power confirmed that he was already on the mend: the bullets had gone through cleanly and he had some sort of regenerative ability that wasn't directly tied to a shard but rather his physiological makeup. He'd be fine. Like before, I got the distinct sense he wasn't human. If I had to guess, I'd say he was closer to something like Nilbog's creations, except much more complex, much more refined.
Another species altogether, maybe? I was in a different dimension, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.
I probably should have asked Contessa why she had shot him. The obvious conclusion was that he was hostile. The question was: was that hostility warranted or not? Had we intruded on his territory in claiming this device? Was he a guardian of some sort? Was I off the mark completely, was he in fact a Case-53, imprisoned here alongside me?
It probably said something bad about me that thinking about him as if he were a problem to be solved gave me a push, a boost of sorts. I felt more like me, more like Taylor Hebert, or Skitter, or Weaver, rather than Khepri. Was that why Contessa had left him there? A living prop to shore up my flagging morale?
Worse, was it working?
I shook my head. I was getting distracted, being suspicious and introspective during a time I should have been focusing outwards, using my time to scout the area and get a feel for what my priorities should be. It would be deeply ironic if I kept my powers and died of something as banal as thirst or starvation. Contessa hadn't exactly left a step-by-step manual on how to survive in this world, or much in the way of specifics on this 'evil device' I had activated. Would it poison nearby water sources? Kill crops and animals? Or was the corruption more insidious, something like a disease or worse, the Simurgh? She had mentioned 'influence' after all.
Perhaps I could find a way to de-activate it. Later, once I was sure such an action wouldn't send my brain dribbling out of my ears.
I had too many questions, too few answers. Frustrating. I'd had Tattletale, then the Protectorate, then both. Now I was flying blind, both figuratively and literally.
I zeroed in on the new presences, more than ready for a more practical distraction. They were childlike, both in stature and mental acuity. Distressed by my power's automatically imposed stillness, they kept trying to move, and kept failing. Feeling them push with such simple-minded regularity, unable to even conceptualize the idea that they were stuck and had to consider some other means of tackling the problem made me feel bad for them in the same way I might have felt bad for a dog or a cat that had been caught with their paw in a mousetrap.
I would have even assumed they were animals, if not for the fact that I could tell they were holding tools of some kind.
I opened my eyes.
I was in a largish room, eighteen to twenty feet across. Leading away from the room was a blocky, square-shaped corridor, beyond it, the device. Even from here, it was like I could feel it, maybe thirty-forty feet away. Without my swarmsense it was harder to judge distances. Torches had been lit along the walls at regular intervals. A consequence of the device's activation? Some other factor? Regardless, I would need to douse them as soon as it was practical: dying from easily preventable asphyxiation or smoke inhalation would be embarrassing. I didn't smell smoke so there likely wasn't an immediate need to be elsewhere, but I'd rather discover that they burned fuel and produced light without using oxygen, than discover the inverse when I started getting light-headed.
Dominating a significant section of the room was the pseudo Case-53. He looked like a Christian's idea of the devil, except grotesquely muscular, almost to the point of a caricature. It was as if someone had made a checklist and gone down the bullet points: hooves, horns, fanged maw, bright red skin. All he needed was a pitchfork and a pointy tail to complete the effect. He was also tall, well over seven feet not counting the ridiculous conical horns that sprouted out the top of his head and muscled to the point it was a off-putting. I turned my attention away from him.
In contrast, the four new arrivals were maybe three feet tall, each holding a pickaxe and a rucksack as big as they were. I consciously refrained from calling them dwarves. I couldn't honestly say if they were ugly or cute. Their eyes were huge and pitch black, their heads bulbous and misshapen, skin closer to orange than beige. But for all that there was a certain... charm to their appearance.
Then again, insects didn't bother me much either. My sense of aesthetics, I had been repeatedly and reliably informed, were a little off.
I carefully herded them out of my range. It was weird. Difficult.
I was so used to everything being automatic, the necessity to operate everything consciously was grating. It felt unnecessary, felt dangerous. Like I suddenly had to focus on each muscle of my legs before I could walk. Already the experience of fighting against Scion was bubbling to the surface, reminding me I had to lose focus, input commands to my Passenger and have it carry out the tasks rather than try to do everything myself.
Small steps, I reminded myself. Besides, this wasn't a fight. I painstakingly guided them out.
"Sorry about that - can you understand me?" I asked, just before they left.
The moment they stepped out of my range, they relaxed. I all but saw them deflate, slouching over so that their small stature was made even shorter. For a moment they chittered among themselves, turned to look at me, chittered again and then scampered off, with what sounded like giggles. I couldn't be sure, given that they were essentially aliens, but their body language didn't suggest they were particularly traumatized by their experience.
I debated following them and staying here with the red-skinned cape before realizing that I could still sense them.
Past sixteen feet it was like my power had switched onto a different setting. My control was still present, but much less direct. I could sense them, and give general commands, but it wasn't to the same extent as within my 'primary' range. The... creatures were clearly in control of their own actions, even my commands were not completely absolute, I could tell there was some leeway in interpretation. Was my power expanding in scope? Was I gradually assuming permanent control of whoever I came into contact with?
Not a positive development, exactly. If I had a choice, I would rather be able to turn it off.
Still, it was a tool. With an effort, I tried to look through their eyes-
-and blinked as a bird's eye view of the entire area replaced my normal vision.
I couldn't explain it. This wasn't part of my power, wasn't even a power related to my power. I had to assume it was a product of the device, though how it was doing this I wasn't sure. Was I being changed, somehow?
The perspective, the awarenesswas almost comforting though. Not my swarmsense, but a close enough substitute. The area – underground structure, really – I was in had a simple enough layout, a central chamber where the device lay, its metal shell beating like a massive orange heart. Connected to it via short corridors – so short they might as well have been doorways – were three chambers, each positioned at right angles relative to the central chamber. If I considered myself to be in the 'North' chamber, then East and West were both empty and South hadn't been excavated at all. The... helpers had started wandering around the Eastern chamber and were hopping up and down, perhaps enraged that they hadn't yet found an exit.
I furrowed my brow. Despite my sudden shift in perspective and awareness, I hadn't found an exit either. Alarming, if true. It made me wonder how any of the others had entered this place.
I felt it then. A tug on my awareness.
I turned and found a baleful orange eye staring at me mutely
Ah. The 'devil' was awake.
________________________________________
How do you handle the pseudo-Case-53?
[] Let him out of your range to talk to him
[] Keep him in your range, attend to other matters
[] Write-in
What would you like to examine most?
[] The helpers
[] The device
[] The pseudo-case-53
[] Your powers
[] Write-in
You feel you really have to...
[] Eat
[] Drink
[] Rest
[] Explore
What will you do about the torches?
[] Extinguish them yourself
[] Get the 'helpers' to knock them down (somehow)
[] Get the pseudo-Case-53 to do it
[] Ignore the problem for now
[] Write-in
What are your plans/goals? (OPTIONAL)
[] Write-in (e.g.: saving the world, becoming a warmer person, getting back home, etc.)
Ah. The 'devil' was awake.
His heart began thundering in his chest, and within moments was beating so fast that I was worried the same thing that had happened to Moord Nag would happen to him too despite the healing factor: he'd have an aneurysm, or fail him. This wasn't stress born out of despair or pain though, the cocktail of hormones in his blood were pointing to a singular emotion: blinding, incandescent rage.
With that much anger at work, I was wary about letting him out of my range. Of course, I was warier of trying to manually screw with his head in order to calm him down. That seemed like the sort of thing that could be justified when trying to save every known world. Saving myself the pain of possibly as small a nuisance as a conversation? Not so much.
Then again, he wasn't healing so fast he'd be able to get up and chase me around just yet. If there was any time to question him about the finer points of the world, or even just determine whether communication was possible or not, now would be the best time.
I briefly went over his power again, just to be safe.
He had a generic brute package: moderate strength and durability enhancements, low-level regeneration, as well as some sort of extremely specialized pyrokinesis and metallokinesis that I could intuit existed but didn't know how to access. Something esoteric was required to access it, maybe a passphrase or a specialized tool. One felt like a close range power, the other mid. I rated the risk as moderate.
"Please, calm down," I said, getting to my feet. The stump of my missing hand ached. "I mean no harm."
If anything, he got angrier. It was justified rage: he had just been shot after all. If I were him, I might have seen my words might have sounded mocking or sarcastic.
Or…
"Can you understand me?" I asked.
Another flare of anger.
I sighed. I was being stupid. He was still in my range. Of course he couldn't reply. And I didn't have close to enough fine tuning to my new abilities to allow him to speak. Wasn't sure that was possible to begin with.
I had him close his eyes as I tried to think. Questions of morality aside, I wasn't one hundred percent sure what to do with him. Would he still be affected by my power when I fell asleep? Or would he murder me the first time I decided I needed to rest? I was feeling more restless than restful right now, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to crash soon, regardless of the rejuvenating effects of the device. The fight with Scion had taken a lot out of me.
I could execute him. It wasn't a pretty possibility, but the option existed. It would be easy, his hands were clawed, a simple slice of his fingers against his jugular and he would bleed-
I paused. Blinked.
Where the hell had that thought come from?
I took a deep breath, feeling suddenly light-headed, off-kilter. In my head it had sounded simple. No, worse, it had sounded reasonable. I knew I'd become cold – fuck me, I'd killed Aster and I hadn't had time to come to terms with that, not really. Even if I had told Contessa I had regrets about the path I had chosen, clearly I didn't have enough. Brutality had become a banal, common sense logic.
And now I was having difficulty turning it off.
I would have liked that I could blame it on something as concrete as 'evil tinker tech screwing my brain,' or an alien organ giving me conflict-encouraging superpowers, but that seemed like an unnecessary leap when the evidence of my actions was all around me. I'd blamed my passenger, but I wasn't so sure that was warranted, anymore. I needed to own up to my actions. This was me. That thought? Mine.
The only person who could begin the change was me.
"I apologize for what my companion did to you," I told him slowly moving towards the corridor. The, for lack of a better term, midgets were still furiously jumping up and down in the Eastern chamber. I wondered if my power really had expanded and he would still be under the aegis of my influence. Another step and he was out of my range.
Unlike the midgets, he was free once I left. I couldn't feel him with my power anymore.
"There, you can speak now," I said.
Instead of answering he slowly stood, rising to something like eight or nine feet depending on how you counted the horns. At his full height, his physique was even more impressive, the massive muscles and his frame giving him an intimidation factor that I found surprising. He wasn't even close to fully healed: I could hear his bones grind together. The pain must have been excruciating.
"Keeper," he growled. His voice was pitched low, a baritone that was strangely melodious. It was almost classy. He flexed a hand: there was a burst of fire and a rusted metal scythe appeared in his grip. "I should kill you."
On the plus side, at least he spoke English.
"I'd rather you didn't," I said.
He laughed. It was a 'huhuhu' sound. The best I could compare it to was a really low-pitched giggle. I wasn't sure if he saw my reply as an omission of weakness, but he stepped forward – and immediately froze as he entered my range.
I clenched my fist, irritated. Why was it that wherever I went, people always had to try and fucking test me?
I took a deep breath. Calm down. Calm down.
He stumbled backwards as I shoved him out, somehow managing to stay upright. I called the midgets back towards me. Not sure if I was comfortable using them as meat shields, but they had tools. I could work with that.
"Don't do that." The words came out with more of a growl than I intended.
He looked at me and smiled. It reminded me of Rachel, less an expression of happiness than a baring of teeth.
"You have power, Keeper," he nodded his head in such a way that it seemed regal, like if from anyone else it would have been a bow. I froze the little guys, just out of sight in the main chamber. "We can discuss payment in exchange for my services after you have dug us out."
I stared at him, unblinking. Something about this situation shouted off to me. A trap? I wasn't sure I saw how. I didn't know enough and already he'd tossed out a term that I had to guess at. Keeper. Was it a title? An honorific? Another thing altogether?
I ignored it for now. There was the not inconsiderable issue of being buried alive that I had to deal with.
Air was the main priority, followed by water, then food. Most of those things could be solved by an exit.
"We are underground, then?" I asked, eyeing the pair of torches in the mini-corridor. I moved to extinguish one, working the torch out of its sconce so I could press it to the floor.
He snorted and began pacing, careful not to step towards me, his free hand opening and closing. "Yes. Megallios left me here to rot. I shall enjoy supping on his innards."
I hoped he wasn't being literal.
He turned towards me. I was finding it difficult to read his body language, every act he did seemed calculated to appear at the edge of violence. "But how is it that you are not aware?"
I shrugged, non-committal. "I was brought here while unconscious."
"Indeed? Interesting."
He drummed his fingers against the haft of his scythe, the noise impatient. I was all too aware that if he decided to throw it at me I wasn't entirely sure I could dodge in time. With my swarm aware of his every movement, yes, easily – but without that knowledge my reflexes were only human.
But I was getting a feel for his personality now. He was the sort of person that respected power and its trappings. The appearance of strengthwas important to him. Why else stand when his knees were in such a sorry state? I finally managed to remove the torch from its sconce, extinguishing it. It was harder to act with only one hand than I had expected.
"What are you doing?" he asked. Even his curiosity sounded menacing.
"I need air to breathe," I pointed out.
"The Dungeon Heart handles such mundane tasks," he said dismissively.
"I'd rather not take the risk," I said, filing that detail away. I would ask him more about the Dungeon Heart when it didn't put me in such a blatant position of weakness.
He grunted in reply. Then, with a sound that was like a physical blow he brought his scythe to bear and started hacking at the walls. Each blow sounded like a thunderclap. I was half-sure that it was meant to annoy me while superficially appearing to be helpful. It was a surprisingly petty gesture.
That or he really needed to vent.
I let him at it. I could always go ask questions later when he was in a slightly more cooperative mood.
"Your imps, Keeper! Have them dig us out!" he called as I left.
For a second, I thought he was referring to Imp. Then I realized that logically it had to be the diminutive orange-skinned creatures with the pickaxes, not Aisha.
How did he know of them? I had sent them away before he'd awoken.
Now that I thought about it, the 'imps' were suspiciously convenient. Trapped underground and there just happen to be small creatures armed with tools that were traditionally associated with mining and digging? I missed Tattletale. It would have been nice to have some confirmation about the suspicions I was starting to have.
We were in too small an area for me to leave the cacophony of his strikes behind me, but as I stepped into the central chamber the noise did diminish some. The imps I'd been gathering in preparation were gathered around the entrance. Their constant attempts to move were consistent with their previous actions. I pushed the imps away until they were out of my primary range, then gave them a suggestion to stay in place.
"Not to be rude, but if you guys are constructs, or house elves out of a Harry Potter book, now would be a good time to tell," I informed them. I had to raise my voice in order to hear myself.
The response wasn't what I would have liked:
One yawned. One picked its teeth. One farted then scratched its ass.
Ix-nay on house elves, then.
I dismissed them, letting them scamper back to whatever it was they were doing and turned to look at the device. It was a pulsing, fleshy-looking sphere maybe ten feet across. Motes of bright green-yellow light burst from it with every beat. The pit it was located in, it took up most of the room. Three arches arranged in a triangle surrounded it, between each pair of arches were a sets of steps.
I examined it as closely as I dared, but a helpful, instinctive understanding for its operation and functionality did not magically download itself into my brain. Just as well. I wasn't sure how much brain altering activities I could handle.
I'd have to keep an eye on it, while I doubted the imps would make much headway in wrecking it, the red devil would be more than capable of carving it into useless chunks.
I was fairly certain he couldn't do so fast enough that I wouldn't be able to interfere, but it was a possibility I had to keep in mind.
For now, I had my priorities: air, water and food.
I decided to double-check that I was, in fact, trapped underground here while I extinguished the rest of the torches. I preferred verifying in person that my new sense of the structure I found myself in wasn't hampered by faulty data. My swarm sense was a known quantity. This new birds-eye view was anything but, and I wouldn't know how reliable it was until I had it vetted through experience.
It took me some time to juggle having both a first-person perspective and a third-person one (for lack of a better term), but by the time I'd taken down all the torches in the central chamber, leaving nothing more than the light of the device itself and the other rooms, I had a good enough handle on it that I wasn't getting vertigo or tripping over myself. I suspected that someone without a Thinker-type awareness would be limited by how much they could spread their attention.
Not one of my weaknesses. I could see the Dungeon Heart beat as readily as I saw the red devil murder use unnecessary violence to murder the walls and the little imps jump up and down and myself pull down another-
Huh.
My eyes were glowing. I took off my mask, hoping it was the light reflected from the 'Dungeon heart', only to discover that no, my irises were glowing red. Combined with the dark version of my costume, the overall effect was a little disquieting.
Well, I certainly looked evil now. Glenn would have an apoplectic fit.
Actually, he wouldn't, but it was fun to imagine his expression.
Had there been any other changes to my physique, hidden beneath my costume? I didn't mind, given the alternative, but it would be nice to know. Did they only glow red when I was using this power to see? Or was it a full-time deal, now?
It was about time I looked into the changes in my power.
I let my body continue going from torch to torch, this time in the Western corridor (the Eastern and Western rooms had no torches in the rooms themselves, thankfully) itself while I paged through my own powers, as if I were examining someone else.
Control over anything with a basic nervous system within a limited radius.
A 'living connection' to the imps. Not the red devil though. So, this would explain the two-tiered command structure.
A 'living connection' to the dungeon heart. There was more to it than just that, but the specifics were a little beyond me if I with just a cursory scan. I made a mental note to look at it once more.
A 'connection' to the central room and the Northern chamber. Was there a difference between the North chamber and the East and West ones? And what was this connec-
My body appeared in the Northern chamber.
The red devil completed his swing, then fell over as his muscles locked up and the momentum of the strike dragged him down when he couldn't compensate for it.
Oops?
________________________________________
What to do?
About the red devil?
[] apologize
[] flee
[] fight
[] write-in
About your new powers?
[] continue research
-[] how? (write-in)
[] stop research, continue later
[] write-in
About the digging?
[] Yes?
-[] which direction?
-[] write-in
[] Wait until later
Anything else? (OPTIONAL)
[] write-in
His heart began thundering in his chest, and within moments was beating so fast that I was worried the same thing that had happened to Moord Nag would happen to him too despite the healing factor: he'd have an aneurysm, or fail him. This wasn't stress born out of despair or pain though, the cocktail of hormones in his blood were pointing to a singular emotion: blinding, incandescent rage.
With that much anger at work, I was wary about letting him out of my range. Of course, I was warier of trying to manually screw with his head in order to calm him down. That seemed like the sort of thing that could be justified when trying to save every known world. Saving myself the pain of possibly as small a nuisance as a conversation? Not so much.
Then again, he wasn't healing so fast he'd be able to get up and chase me around just yet. If there was any time to question him about the finer points of the world, or even just determine whether communication was possible or not, now would be the best time.
I briefly went over his power again, just to be safe.
He had a generic brute package: moderate strength and durability enhancements, low-level regeneration, as well as some sort of extremely specialized pyrokinesis and metallokinesis that I could intuit existed but didn't know how to access. Something esoteric was required to access it, maybe a passphrase or a specialized tool. One felt like a close range power, the other mid. I rated the risk as moderate.
"Please, calm down," I said, getting to my feet. The stump of my missing hand ached. "I mean no harm."
If anything, he got angrier. It was justified rage: he had just been shot after all. If I were him, I might have seen my words might have sounded mocking or sarcastic.
Or…
"Can you understand me?" I asked.
Another flare of anger.
I sighed. I was being stupid. He was still in my range. Of course he couldn't reply. And I didn't have close to enough fine tuning to my new abilities to allow him to speak. Wasn't sure that was possible to begin with.
I had him close his eyes as I tried to think. Questions of morality aside, I wasn't one hundred percent sure what to do with him. Would he still be affected by my power when I fell asleep? Or would he murder me the first time I decided I needed to rest? I was feeling more restless than restful right now, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to crash soon, regardless of the rejuvenating effects of the device. The fight with Scion had taken a lot out of me.
I could execute him. It wasn't a pretty possibility, but the option existed. It would be easy, his hands were clawed, a simple slice of his fingers against his jugular and he would bleed-
I paused. Blinked.
Where the hell had that thought come from?
I took a deep breath, feeling suddenly light-headed, off-kilter. In my head it had sounded simple. No, worse, it had sounded reasonable. I knew I'd become cold – fuck me, I'd killed Aster and I hadn't had time to come to terms with that, not really. Even if I had told Contessa I had regrets about the path I had chosen, clearly I didn't have enough. Brutality had become a banal, common sense logic.
And now I was having difficulty turning it off.
I would have liked that I could blame it on something as concrete as 'evil tinker tech screwing my brain,' or an alien organ giving me conflict-encouraging superpowers, but that seemed like an unnecessary leap when the evidence of my actions was all around me. I'd blamed my passenger, but I wasn't so sure that was warranted, anymore. I needed to own up to my actions. This was me. That thought? Mine.
The only person who could begin the change was me.
"I apologize for what my companion did to you," I told him slowly moving towards the corridor. The, for lack of a better term, midgets were still furiously jumping up and down in the Eastern chamber. I wondered if my power really had expanded and he would still be under the aegis of my influence. Another step and he was out of my range.
Unlike the midgets, he was free once I left. I couldn't feel him with my power anymore.
"There, you can speak now," I said.
Instead of answering he slowly stood, rising to something like eight or nine feet depending on how you counted the horns. At his full height, his physique was even more impressive, the massive muscles and his frame giving him an intimidation factor that I found surprising. He wasn't even close to fully healed: I could hear his bones grind together. The pain must have been excruciating.
"Keeper," he growled. His voice was pitched low, a baritone that was strangely melodious. It was almost classy. He flexed a hand: there was a burst of fire and a rusted metal scythe appeared in his grip. "I should kill you."
On the plus side, at least he spoke English.
"I'd rather you didn't," I said.
He laughed. It was a 'huhuhu' sound. The best I could compare it to was a really low-pitched giggle. I wasn't sure if he saw my reply as an omission of weakness, but he stepped forward – and immediately froze as he entered my range.
I clenched my fist, irritated. Why was it that wherever I went, people always had to try and fucking test me?
I took a deep breath. Calm down. Calm down.
He stumbled backwards as I shoved him out, somehow managing to stay upright. I called the midgets back towards me. Not sure if I was comfortable using them as meat shields, but they had tools. I could work with that.
"Don't do that." The words came out with more of a growl than I intended.
He looked at me and smiled. It reminded me of Rachel, less an expression of happiness than a baring of teeth.
"You have power, Keeper," he nodded his head in such a way that it seemed regal, like if from anyone else it would have been a bow. I froze the little guys, just out of sight in the main chamber. "We can discuss payment in exchange for my services after you have dug us out."
I stared at him, unblinking. Something about this situation shouted off to me. A trap? I wasn't sure I saw how. I didn't know enough and already he'd tossed out a term that I had to guess at. Keeper. Was it a title? An honorific? Another thing altogether?
I ignored it for now. There was the not inconsiderable issue of being buried alive that I had to deal with.
Air was the main priority, followed by water, then food. Most of those things could be solved by an exit.
"We are underground, then?" I asked, eyeing the pair of torches in the mini-corridor. I moved to extinguish one, working the torch out of its sconce so I could press it to the floor.
He snorted and began pacing, careful not to step towards me, his free hand opening and closing. "Yes. Megallios left me here to rot. I shall enjoy supping on his innards."
I hoped he wasn't being literal.
He turned towards me. I was finding it difficult to read his body language, every act he did seemed calculated to appear at the edge of violence. "But how is it that you are not aware?"
I shrugged, non-committal. "I was brought here while unconscious."
"Indeed? Interesting."
He drummed his fingers against the haft of his scythe, the noise impatient. I was all too aware that if he decided to throw it at me I wasn't entirely sure I could dodge in time. With my swarm aware of his every movement, yes, easily – but without that knowledge my reflexes were only human.
But I was getting a feel for his personality now. He was the sort of person that respected power and its trappings. The appearance of strengthwas important to him. Why else stand when his knees were in such a sorry state? I finally managed to remove the torch from its sconce, extinguishing it. It was harder to act with only one hand than I had expected.
"What are you doing?" he asked. Even his curiosity sounded menacing.
"I need air to breathe," I pointed out.
"The Dungeon Heart handles such mundane tasks," he said dismissively.
"I'd rather not take the risk," I said, filing that detail away. I would ask him more about the Dungeon Heart when it didn't put me in such a blatant position of weakness.
He grunted in reply. Then, with a sound that was like a physical blow he brought his scythe to bear and started hacking at the walls. Each blow sounded like a thunderclap. I was half-sure that it was meant to annoy me while superficially appearing to be helpful. It was a surprisingly petty gesture.
That or he really needed to vent.
I let him at it. I could always go ask questions later when he was in a slightly more cooperative mood.
"Your imps, Keeper! Have them dig us out!" he called as I left.
For a second, I thought he was referring to Imp. Then I realized that logically it had to be the diminutive orange-skinned creatures with the pickaxes, not Aisha.
How did he know of them? I had sent them away before he'd awoken.
Now that I thought about it, the 'imps' were suspiciously convenient. Trapped underground and there just happen to be small creatures armed with tools that were traditionally associated with mining and digging? I missed Tattletale. It would have been nice to have some confirmation about the suspicions I was starting to have.
We were in too small an area for me to leave the cacophony of his strikes behind me, but as I stepped into the central chamber the noise did diminish some. The imps I'd been gathering in preparation were gathered around the entrance. Their constant attempts to move were consistent with their previous actions. I pushed the imps away until they were out of my primary range, then gave them a suggestion to stay in place.
"Not to be rude, but if you guys are constructs, or house elves out of a Harry Potter book, now would be a good time to tell," I informed them. I had to raise my voice in order to hear myself.
The response wasn't what I would have liked:
One yawned. One picked its teeth. One farted then scratched its ass.
Ix-nay on house elves, then.
I dismissed them, letting them scamper back to whatever it was they were doing and turned to look at the device. It was a pulsing, fleshy-looking sphere maybe ten feet across. Motes of bright green-yellow light burst from it with every beat. The pit it was located in, it took up most of the room. Three arches arranged in a triangle surrounded it, between each pair of arches were a sets of steps.
I examined it as closely as I dared, but a helpful, instinctive understanding for its operation and functionality did not magically download itself into my brain. Just as well. I wasn't sure how much brain altering activities I could handle.
I'd have to keep an eye on it, while I doubted the imps would make much headway in wrecking it, the red devil would be more than capable of carving it into useless chunks.
I was fairly certain he couldn't do so fast enough that I wouldn't be able to interfere, but it was a possibility I had to keep in mind.
For now, I had my priorities: air, water and food.
I decided to double-check that I was, in fact, trapped underground here while I extinguished the rest of the torches. I preferred verifying in person that my new sense of the structure I found myself in wasn't hampered by faulty data. My swarm sense was a known quantity. This new birds-eye view was anything but, and I wouldn't know how reliable it was until I had it vetted through experience.
It took me some time to juggle having both a first-person perspective and a third-person one (for lack of a better term), but by the time I'd taken down all the torches in the central chamber, leaving nothing more than the light of the device itself and the other rooms, I had a good enough handle on it that I wasn't getting vertigo or tripping over myself. I suspected that someone without a Thinker-type awareness would be limited by how much they could spread their attention.
Not one of my weaknesses. I could see the Dungeon Heart beat as readily as I saw the red devil murder use unnecessary violence to murder the walls and the little imps jump up and down and myself pull down another-
Huh.
My eyes were glowing. I took off my mask, hoping it was the light reflected from the 'Dungeon heart', only to discover that no, my irises were glowing red. Combined with the dark version of my costume, the overall effect was a little disquieting.
Well, I certainly looked evil now. Glenn would have an apoplectic fit.
Actually, he wouldn't, but it was fun to imagine his expression.
Had there been any other changes to my physique, hidden beneath my costume? I didn't mind, given the alternative, but it would be nice to know. Did they only glow red when I was using this power to see? Or was it a full-time deal, now?
It was about time I looked into the changes in my power.
I let my body continue going from torch to torch, this time in the Western corridor (the Eastern and Western rooms had no torches in the rooms themselves, thankfully) itself while I paged through my own powers, as if I were examining someone else.
Control over anything with a basic nervous system within a limited radius.
A 'living connection' to the imps. Not the red devil though. So, this would explain the two-tiered command structure.
A 'living connection' to the dungeon heart. There was more to it than just that, but the specifics were a little beyond me if I with just a cursory scan. I made a mental note to look at it once more.
A 'connection' to the central room and the Northern chamber. Was there a difference between the North chamber and the East and West ones? And what was this connec-
My body appeared in the Northern chamber.
The red devil completed his swing, then fell over as his muscles locked up and the momentum of the strike dragged him down when he couldn't compensate for it.
Oops?
________________________________________
What to do?
About the red devil?
[] apologize
[] flee
[] fight
[] write-in
About your new powers?
[] continue research
-[] how? (write-in)
[] stop research, continue later
[] write-in
About the digging?
[] Yes?
-[] which direction?
-[] write-in
[] Wait until later
Anything else? (OPTIONAL)
[] write-in
Nai
SI Archivist
What to do?
About the Red Devil?
[X] Apologize
About your new powers?
[X] Write-in: Ask the Devil about the Dungeon Heart.
About the Digging?
[X] Yes
-[x] Command the Imps to begin excavating the South Chamber.
Anything Else?
[X] Gather all the torches that were knocked down for later use in the Dungeon Heart's Chamber.
About the Red Devil?
[X] Apologize
About your new powers?
[X] Write-in: Ask the Devil about the Dungeon Heart.
About the Digging?
[X] Yes
-[x] Command the Imps to begin excavating the South Chamber.
Anything Else?
[X] Gather all the torches that were knocked down for later use in the Dungeon Heart's Chamber.
Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
[X] Apologize
[X] Write-in: Ask the Devil about the Dungeon Heart.
[X] Yes
-[x] Command the Imps to begin excavating the South Chamber.
[X] Gather all the torches that were knocked down for later use in the Dungeon Heart's Chamber.
Not seeing any better options until more information and resources are to be had.
[X] Write-in: Ask the Devil about the Dungeon Heart.
[X] Yes
-[x] Command the Imps to begin excavating the South Chamber.
[X] Gather all the torches that were knocked down for later use in the Dungeon Heart's Chamber.
Not seeing any better options until more information and resources are to be had.
Why call the vote again? We already came to consensus on SB.
Why abandon SB? Observer bought the sever from Kier and is in the process of upgrading it.
[X] Chriswriter Plan
About the red devil?
[X] Write-in: Re-afirm control and have the Imps take his scythe. Maneuver him into a corner, so that the only way to leave is to re-enter your range. Then demand answers.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] Continue research
-[X] Examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
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[X] Write-in: Re-afirm controle and have the Imps take his scythe. Maneuver him into a corner, so that the only way to leave is to re-enter your range. Then demand answers.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
Pretty sure I posted this update at approximately the same time as the one on SB. Mostly it was out of curiosity because I'd heard there was more activity here (more votes + more discussion = gud ) but that was lies, sadly.
This one'll probably be discontinued to save myself the headache of counting in two places.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Write-in: Re-afirm controle and have the Imps take his scythe. Maneuver him into a corner, so that the only way to leave is to re-enter your range. Then demand answers.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
WanderingEye
smol skeleton
[X] Write-in: Re-afirm controle and have the Imps take his scythe. Maneuver him into a corner, so that the only way to leave is to re-enter your range. Then demand answers.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
[X] Write-in: Re-afirm controle and have the Imps take his scythe. Maneuver him into a corner, so that the only way to leave is to re-enter your range. Then demand answers.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
About the red devil?
[X] Don't apologize, he'll see it as weakness. Instead, find out more about the name he dropped. Use it as an excuse and gather more information.
About your new powers?
[X] You've got multitasking, use it. Deal with the devil and continue investigating your powers.
About the digging?
[X] Ask the devil if there are gravitational effects present from when he was imprisoned. If not, dig a ramp up.
Anything else? (OPTIONAL)
[X] Press the devil for likely local threats we'll encounter, once we breach the surface.
[X] Don't apologize, he'll see it as weakness. Instead, find out more about the name he dropped. Use it as an excuse and gather more information.
About your new powers?
[X] You've got multitasking, use it. Deal with the devil and continue investigating your powers.
About the digging?
[X] Ask the devil if there are gravitational effects present from when he was imprisoned. If not, dig a ramp up.
Anything else? (OPTIONAL)
[X] Press the devil for likely local threats we'll encounter, once we breach the surface.
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[X] Write-in: Re-afirm controle and have the Imps take his scythe. Maneuver him into a corner, so that the only way to leave is to re-enter your range. Then demand answers.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
- Location
- the netherlands
[X] Write-in: Re-afirm controle and have the Imps take his scythe. Maneuver him into a corner, so that the only way to leave is to re-enter your range. Then demand answers.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.
--[X] Who are you?
--[X] How long have you been down here?
--[X] What are Keepers?
--[X] What is the Dungeon Heart?
--[X] Who are/were the local political powerhouses and notable heroes & villains?
About your new powers?
[X] continue research
-[X] examine your "connections" more closely what can you do with it?
About the digging?
[X] Yes?
-[X] Look for a cave-in that appears to have once been an entrance.