Opening my eyes again was, in short, the strangest experience of my life. I’m not even sure if you can call what I did opening my eyes. It was more like one moment my awareness of everything vanished, and then returned in a sudden overwhelming rush.
Not quite blinking at the strangeness before me, I stood, taking in the world of obnoxious baby blue crystal. Standing isn't quite the right word, actually. Existed perhaps? I was aware of myself, but focusing on that existence only led to an overwhelming sense of confusion and disorientation. So let's just say, I existed, not really doing anything. Riveting, I’m sure, but that’s all I could do, just sit there and exist within the crystalline space. Occasionally there would appear a pocket of substance, a dream of reality, if you will, of grasslands or cities or battlefields, all drifting by in a rush so that I could only gain a glimpse.
I sensed it then, another in the space, their being seaming to encompass the entirety of things there, save for me. They reached for me in a way that was both real and not, and spoke without words, but, well, that sounds boring as fuck so I’ll translate.
The dungeon: “Hey”
Me: “Hey?”
We stared at each other over the distance that was not distance within the strange space, neither of us saying anything else. “What's going on?” I asked when it became clear that they weren’t going to start the conversation.
“You ate us,” The dungeon said simply. I stared at them, narrowing the eyes I didn’t have anymore.
“And? Where am I? What's happened? Did we do it? Did we stop them from destroying the city? Again, what the fuck is going on?” I gestured wildly around me with my unreal form, bits of my awareness settling on the crystalline void around us for emphasis. They seemed to understand.
“Almost.”
I groaned inwardly, realizing that this would probably take some time, time I didn’t have. “What the fuck does the even mean? Did we almost win? Is that it? You said that if I ate your core you would stop them. Was that a lie?”
“No, we did not lie,” They said simply, their entire being either void of emotion or so full of it that they were unable to express any of it. I honestly couldn’t tell which it was. “And we will stop the disaster, as agreed, but things move slowly. We must adjust to this new reality. Human bodies are so… Temperamental.”
I felt my whole being frown at that. “Again, what the fuck does that mean?”
“It is of no importance to you. Let us commence the formalization of the terms of our agreement.”
“Right, uh, no,” I said, pushing the sense of my hands on my hips in the dungeon’s direction. “Of course, it's of fucking importance to me, it's my fucking body!”
“Not anymore.”
If I’d had an eyebrow it would have been twitching “Says who?” I was full-on glaring at them now, my whole presence taking on a faint red glow.
They stared at me for a moment, then said slowly, as if it were perfectly obvious and they were having to explain it to a child, “you and we agreed to it.”
“Well, I don’t fucking recall agreeing to that.” I was more than just faintly glowing red at that point, I was more a presence of scarlet wrath.
The dungeon didn’t seem to understand. “It was implied, and you agreed,” they said, turning from educating parent to a confused child.
“Fucking when was that ever implied?”
“You asked, ‘so I’ll have to die?’ and we answered, ‘it would not be death, but it would not be life, either. The price we ask is you,’ and you agreed.”
I felt a bit of the anger ebb away as I thought about it for a second. “I thought you meant I was going to serve you, not give you control over my body.” I tried to moderate my tone, but it still came out somewhat peeved.
The dungeon was silent for a pause before they continued. “We apologize for the miscommunication, but what is done is done. We cannot take it back. This will be taken into consideration when you and we decide the terms of our agreement.”
And so I sighed, folding my not-arms across my not-chest within the not-reality. “Fine, fine. Let's just get this over with then.
“Shall we begin?” The dungeon asked, and I did the incorporeal equivalent of an eye roll.
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Oh,” they said, drawing closer with hesitation as if they were nearing a creature they did not quite know how to handle yet. “Excellent. Let us explain to you the nature of all this, so as to avoid any more misunderstandings.”
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I settled back, letting the last of my annoyance slip away like silt in a river. “That would be great, thanks.” The words still came out sounding somewhat snarky, but hey, that’s just who I am. Kind of difficult to turn that off.
“Let us begin, then, in the time when your people first stepped foot upon this world. It was in those early-”
“Um, no,” I said, cutting them off before they could start rambling on and on like a history teacher who’d finally found someone willing to listen. “I don’t need the history lesson, thanks. All I need to know is the stuff that affects me, got it?” I paused as a thought occurred to me. “How about this? I tell you what I thought was going on, and you then correct me. Would that work for you?”
They were silent for a moment, their being doing something akin to a head tilt. “That seems acceptable to us. Begin then.”
“Okay,” I said, drawing out the first syllable with a long ‘o’ sound as I tried to figure out how to explain my understanding. “So, I thought that, like, I would eat your core, right? And then it would give me all these awesome powers and whatnot and I’d be able to kick my friends' asses to stop them from destroying my home and killing my wife. Wow, I didn’t realize how fucked all that was until I just said it all out loud. Fuck me. Anyway, I assumed that, like in the stories, the power would be so awesome, or whatever, that my body would just not be able to take it for too long and I would die, or maybe, like get close to that and then be saved by some sort of miracle so that I could live happily ever after with my wife. But, yeah, in retrospect that does sound kinda stupid now that I’ve said it out loud. How much of that did I get right?”
As I finished speaking, the dungeon’s being took on the feel of someone putting a hand to their chin in contemplation. “We suppose this is an understandable confusion. Again, we must apologize. It has been too long since we have spoken with your kind. We should have anticipated this and likewise prepared ourselves. Very well. Let us clarify, then. First, you must understand that you bear a unique power, one that was never meant for mortals, but which also cannot be wielded without their hands. It is this power that created this opportunity for you and we to both correct and prevent wrongs.”
“I think I vaguely understand what you're saying,” I said, remembering a certain series of interactions with the adventurers’ association that were beginning to make a bit more sense to me. “What's the point of explaining this to me though?”
“The point is that doing what you did, consuming our core, would be suicide of the most extreme degree for any mortal other than yourself. And by that we mean they would be destroyed utterly, with not even a whisper of their consciousness remaining. It is because these so-called blessings your mortal gods bestow upon their people are merely imitations of true divine power. Your power, however, comes from an altogether different source. Your power is genuinely divine, with far greater potential than anything those pretenders could produce, and so your body can better contain our being, and now, together we shall achieve what our kind has long desired. You were, as is said, destined for greatness, it seems.”
I gave a derisive snort, which was more like a puff of my being circling out and back into me. “Greatness. I’m beginning to think it's not all that great.”
They gave something like a nod at my response. “It is a heavy burden to bear,” they said, but I wasn’t really listening, my mind absorbed in thinking about something, a frown about my being. “You wonder why your association did not simply try and kill you or use you for their own ends?” They asked suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts.
“Um, yeah,” I said slowly. Can you, like, read my mind now, or something?” I was definitely not up for that.
“Sometimes. It is nothing more than a passing glimpse, such as the ones you’ve seen here,” they said, gesturing towards the occasional dream-like bursts of creation that would flash in and out of the space. “The answer to your question, however, is simple. Say you were to stumble upon a sleeping dragon. What would you do?”
“Let sleeping dragons lie,” I recited with a sort of shrug. “I’d get the fuck out of there and let it be. You’re saying they see me as a sleeping dragon?”
“It is more accurate to say they saw you as a sleeping god, but yes. So long as they kept you from achieving your potential you were merely an annoyance. But now, we awaken and-”
“Yeah, yeah, that's great and all, but I don’t need to read your manifesto. I just want to make sure you’ll keep your promise. Síle won’t be hurt? You’ll protect her?”
They were silent for a moment as if my unexpected interruption had thrown them for a loop. Honestly, I didn’t care. I was running out of patience for all this and it was all over my head anyway. “If that is what you wish from us, then we will see it done. Let it be a part of our terms. Taking into account the unfortunate misunderstanding, it is the least we might do. Is there anything else you would ask of us?”
“Give me a chance to set things right with her,” I said, guilt washing over me in my entirety. “I’ve kinda been an asshole about so much. I, well, I guess there's no point in making excuses now. I just want a chance to talk to her again.”
“That can be arranged, but you will not have long. Your mind and this body are no longer compatible. Should you linger too long you would risk damaging what remains of you.”
“That’s fine,” I said, idly wondering if there might still be a way for me to talk full control again despite what they were telling me.
“Is that all?” They asked when it became apparent I had nothing more to say. At my continued silence, they went on. “The debt we owe to you is still too great. We request that you ask for yet more to satisfy the bond between us, lest we both be destroyed by its power.”
I frowned but figured it must just accept their words. I’d heard enough stories to get the gist of it. I thought for a moment, then said, “You don’t seem to like humans, do you.”
“That would be, as your kind says, putting it mildly,” they said, their voice taking on the first hint of strong emotion for the first time.
“Great,” I said, snapping my not fingers as it came to me. “Find a way to coexist with them. No mass murder or genocide or anything like that.”
They were silent again as if my suggestion that they shouldn’t commit genocide against an entire species, my species, were too much an ask. “Acceptable,” They said after a while, and I felt the bond between us settle fully into place, no longer a physical thing on my body, but an intrinsic part of my being now.
“So,” I said, glancing around the space. “What now?” and then, we awoke.