Sister Simulacra
Chapter 76
Staring into ruby flames, I understood I was supposed to yield. It was a command resonating in my very core. The pain and my sense of responsibility would end the moment I did. Another would take my place, and the burden would fall from me.
Eyes of magma and a hissing bark of laughter flashed through my mind. Not everything was a burden, not all responsibility was unwelcomed.
“Give in!” Something hissed. Small pleasures didn’t make up for what I had to do. The choices that had been forced on me. The things I would be held accountable for having done. If I gave in, then they would no longer be my sins.
A children's book for a child who’d never been allowed to be one. Violet jewels rolling in disdain that thinly veiled uncertainty and fear. I might not have been given much of a choice, but I’d chosen. That would not change, nor would I be absolved of it even in surrender. I shouldn’t be, even if I could.
"You shouldn't be able to-" a double-layered feminine voice raged. Hands on my neck and red fire burning with hatred and frustration. Nothing would change that mattered. One dungeon master was indistinguishable from another. All would be well.
Blue jewels shining from within bone as gentle words were spoken haltingly. Skilled hands picking out delicate embroidery instead of slitting throats. Laughter from creatures who’d been denied voice.
I didn't know who was trying to get me to submit. I didn’t care why they were. All I knew was that they could go fuck themselves.
I pushed back against the pain and my own fear with everything I had. I struggled against the other creature with desperation and fury, I would not give up what was mine. I would not fail those I’d called to me.
I hadn’t died gently the first time. I would not submit sweetly now.
We fell, thrashing and scrabbling at each other through a star blighted void. Above us the world or eternity shook as powers struggled for dominion. Runes flare and die as keys clatter beneath them.
He is beautiful. His is the domain of the sought for rest, the surrender of the mind. One who rules in the silence of an unending scream. He has a letter opener sharper than Occam's razor and will gut the beast of order which has too long languished in sloth.
The other is One born of books and rules and good intentions. Often overlooked, rarely understood, never loved in return. It is not enough that it is written. It must also be felt, for no law is just that gives no consideration for circumstance. He abhors absolutes, knowing they bring nothing but loss. Yet he loved that which aspired to such heights.
There, upon a field of letters they struggle. The creature of order is petty, jealous, and he is fighting, despite every cut bleeding his own heart. This thing which wears his loves' face knows its advantage, knows his weakness. There is blood and death, and I see no more.
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" I shouted. Mainly because I had no idea what else to do. What I'd just witnessed felt like upgrade sickness on steroids. The starless darkness without a sense of direction was the less jarring part of whatever was going on.
In front of me hovered something with burning red fire for eyes. I took a wild guess it was another DM. Probably the one who'd seemed to ooze from me not so long ago. She was looking at me, but not saying anything. Like a creep.
"What's your name?" I asked. Time had passed, though I wasn’t sure how much. My body ached terribly, but the sense of tearing and wrongness was gone at least. I took it as an improvement. I tried opening the system, but nothing happened.
"Why would I need such a thing?" she asked harshly. Her whisper-quiet voice carried and filled the void around us before disappearing.
"I'm going to call you 24," I informed 24. She hissed irritably in response, which didn't displease me any. On the contrary, given that she'd just oozed out of me, it struck me as rude that she wasn't offering any kind of explanation or introduction.
"As if it matters, you've ruined everything!" She growled at me. Hearing a voice like my own was a bit jarring. I hadn't realized how creepy it really was from an outsider's perspective.
"What’s ‘everything’ in this context?" I asked. I didn't genuinely expect an answer, but there wasn't a point in not asking.
"Your dungeon would have been mine, and I'd have remade it correctly! What kind of dungeon master even wants monsters that think in the first place?" 24 snarled.
"The kind that doesn't want to go insane living in a hole in the ground surrounded by murder drones?" I offered. I heard a growl, and there was another long pause. It could have been seconds or eons in this strange place we’d found ourselves.
"Then you have a death wish!" 24 retorted finally.
"What do you get out of doing the opposite, aside from loneliness?" I demanded. 24 didn't respond this time.
Stolen novel; please report.
"Well, with a charming personality like yours, at least I don't have to worry the crew won't recognize an imposter. Not even if you shave the goatee," I said, mostly to be irritating. I had no practical idea of what 24 looked like aside from the ruby color of her flames. I was picturing a caricature of me with a mustache fit for twirling and goatee anyway.
While I was making noise to fill the oppressive silence, I was mentally running through every possible command I could think of. On top of not getting access to the system properly, my display didn't show the time or any usual icons. Unresponsive glyphs floated in their place.
"Wow, couldn't resist, could you? Nerd," she spat. I felt a sting of anger followed by a realization.
"Takes a nerd to recognize the reference," I shot back.
"So, what exactly are you? Aside from an incompetent doppelganger," I asked to keep 24 talking.
‘Inventory,’ I thought, and a strange glyph appeared, but nothing else. I'd expected it and tried focusing, remembering what the proper icon looked like. I imagined the interface opened and did my best to remember the contents.
For a moment, my item box wobbled into existence. In the next, it shimmered out before I could do anything. No amount of picturing it got it to appear a second time.
"I am what you will be when your weakness is gone," 24 spat.
"My sense of humor is a weakness?" I asked with genuine curiosity. I did not understand the math on that one.
"Everything about you is a weakness! Those monsters you're so concerned about? They're only like that because you assumed they would be," 24 snarled.
"Wait, what?" I asked, taken by surprise.
"Other DM's get proper, what did you call them? Murder drones? Obedient and programmable monsters," 42 said with disdain.
Some of what she'd said tracked with things I already knew. The skeletons had mentioned not being able to talk under other DMs. Being definitely because of me wasn't something I thought would ever be confirmed.
I tried to think of anything the difference could be traced back to. Nothing sprang to mind at first, not until I remembered the first time the hounds talked to me. I hadn't expected that, but I'd looked in their profile and found that they could communicate after the fact.
While I couldn’t be sure that was it, it was all I could come up with. I’d assumed that if a creature could talk that it would and that had led to everything else. It was almost hilariously simple.
"You took them and made a fucking circus that I'll have to sort out," 24 said, dropping the snarl but still clearly pissed.
"Seriously? If you’re me stripped of everything worth a fuck, I doubt you'll have the creativity to make anything but a bunch of low rent murder maze garbage," I spat back. The monsters I'd summoned weren't things. Not even Squish, the poor bastard. 24 could fuck right the hell off if she thought I’d hand them over to her tender mercies.
"Though I guess it wouldn't bother you, since you don't care. It's not like you'd get anything from it, even if you were in control," I added.
"Is that something that matters? Not being alone, getting something from being a DM?" 24 asked. For the first time, she didn't sound angry, which was odd to hear.
"I think so. I mean, what's the point otherwise? Existence in only the most basic sense? No thanks," I said flatly.
"24 is a shitty name. You might as well have called me reverse 42," 24 pouted. I wondered if the creativity comment had struck a nerve. I was good at making things, not naming them.
"You do have the orbs for it, but you'd be shiny and white instead of shadow if you were a proper reverse," I countered. She made a pained sound of disgust like I'd landed a particularly atrocious dad joke. I felt a little proud of myself.
I was still trying to think of a way out of my present situation, but not coming up with anything actionable. There was the option to ask 24 for ideas but I discarded it. If she had any, I didn't doubt I'd be floating in the dark alone right now. She’d likely try to fuck me over with her plan even if it required cooperation also occurred to me.
My body still hurt, but it was getting better. I only felt about as awful as when I'd coughed up the boon. Thinking of that, my plan E started forming.
I imagined the boon, with every detail of the crystal I could recall. Nothing happened. I felt a frustrated sense of defeat. One that probably wasn't much different from 24's.
"24? You know, instead of thinking of ourselves as original and copy, or old and better version, I think we should just say we're sisters. I mean, we're not that similar, but you know. We kind of are," I offered. I'd called her an incompetent doppelganger. She's said she was the not-shit version of me. I felt like I was offering a reasonable compromise.
"Whatever," 24 said without enthusiasm. I took that as a reluctant maybe. It was probably the best I was going to get.
This time I didn’t simply recall how the boon looked. No, I remember that Duello gave it to me for services rendered. How it tore and burned coming up. I recall everything about it.
A red warning box I couldn't read flashed into being. I ignored it, focusing on the stone. Again, there was strong resistance, but it was in my hands the next moment. I held it tightly to hide its light from 24.
It burned to hold it, but I held tight anyway. After recent events, my pain tolerance was not something to be underestimated.
"You figured something out, didn't you?" 24 asked dejectedly. I didn’t answer. I don't know if I had or not. I also didn’t want to give her an opening to try anything.
The boon continued to burn in my hand, but I didn't know how to activate it. Its encyclopedia entry had been slightly more than useless. Instead of fretting about it I focused, trying to calm my mind down. I focused on the stone and hoping that Duello would make good somehow because I was screwed as things stood.
A desire I couldn’t explain started to well up. Duello was a god of communication and I found myself raising the boon to my face. There was a tearing noise as the pseudo flesh over where a mouth would be ripped apart. The sound was sickening and wet, but the process was thankfully painless.
Where once had been a smooth expanse, jagged flesh revealed a toothy maw. Carried onward by the instinct that controlled me, I placed the boon into my new mouth. The weight of it rested on my tongue for a moment before my jaws snapped close, shattering it into splinters.
The fragments of the boon choked me even as I tried to swallow. They burned as they dug painfully into my mouth and throat, becoming part of me.
"Fuck!" I hissed aloud. The voice issuing from my new mouth was dry and painful. As if I hadn't spoken in years.
"42?" Steve's surprised voice sounded in my head. I felt elated despite trying to cope with the sensation of suddenly having a tongue.
"Help!" I said quickly.
"Hang on – Oh, you're in the-" Steve said before the connection broke. I looked at 24, and she looked at me. I could see something odd and glistening in the light of her orbs. She had a mouth, a sickening collection of too sharp teeth framed by torn flesh. I opened my mouth to speak, then realized I had nothing to say.
24 shrugged as if she understood, and the darkness swam around me. I found myself looking at the aftermath of a battle. In white ichor that glittered gold was written the beautiful one's name.
"42?" someone asked in concern. I could not remember who they were.
Beneath the name written on the planes of eternity laid the being of order clutching its neck to staunch its own bleeding. Black ichor, not its own, covered it and smoked faintly. I laid upon a throne long empty with only the fading radiance of its former occupant to remember them by.
Above me was him who had called to me. Love given in haste hung about his neck like a floral noose. Cloaked in dull madness but burning so much brighter within. If the light would be guiding or become as a blade could not be seen.
"Shiiit, sorry. I forgot your perceptions aren't filtered," Steve said. I looked up at him, wondering what the fuck had just happened. I was lying across an office chair while he bent over me and worked at a computer. I couldn't see him any better than last time. He was still a walking void in a robe. Despite that, he looked beat up, and I was pretty sure he was bleeding from knife wounds.
Looking around, there was blood in various colors splattered aplenty about the office. Not far from where I laid bonelessly across the chair, a guy in a suit was clutching his neck as it bled profusely. It looked like he'd written something in his own blood on the wall.
I wasn't the only one having a fucked up day, it seemed.