“But it’s not fair.” Gella sniffled, leaning into the large man’s touch. “It’s not fair.”
“You’re good people,” Kelar smiled, his eyes twinkling. Then he leaned forward and lowered his voice so that Gella could barely hear his words. “I meant what I said before. If you ever find more of us, speak the word Kellagrimgor and they will accept you—”
“No!” Gella hit Kellar’s chest with her fists. “No...no. How could the goddess allow something like this to happen? You are a good man!”
“The goddess allows each of us to fight our own battles. If this is the end of mine, then so be it. I am glad to have met you before my end. Now go, before your mother punishes you more than she already has.”
“Back away from the slaves—”
“Servants,” a gentle cough sounded from the head priest.
“—so that we may commence the ritual.” Miranda gritted her teeth.
“I wish this had never happened,” Gella whispered as Miranda’s harsh command sounded from behind her. She glanced back but then shook her head in frustration. Many thoughts crossed her mind at that moment, but they all revolved around a single idea: It would take a miracle to prevent this.
“I wish...” she murmured, closing her eyes. She had never been encouraged to pray by her mother, and even if she had developed the habit, she wouldn’t wish to beg for Deia’s help in the first place. The Goddess had never answered her prayers in the past, so why should she start now? Especially since it was her teachings that had placed Kellar in this situation in the first place.
There was one entity that had listened to her prayers in the past. One entity that saved her, without any mention or expectation of recompense. So Gella leaned forward until her forehead stopped against Kellar’s rock-hard chest, scrunched her eyes closed, and prayed.
Great Dungeon. You have saved me once before. Please. I would give anything if you could just...make slave collars disappear.
----------------------------------------
Time ground to a halt as every fiber of my being became aware of a small human girl kneeling on the muddy, torn-up ground. My disgust and frustration with the whole situation froze into a crystalline solid. It was as if I had been divested of all my attachments to the situation and had become an outsider looking in.
Relief flooded me, and I remembered. Memories of a forgotten life bubbled to the surface as my attention narrowed in on that frail human girl. The joys of sunlight in the spring, and how the tart sweetness of a strawberry could elevate any morning. In an instant, I remembered what it had felt like to be a part of a conversation and the thrill of having others cheer you on from the sidelines. I remembered what it was like to be human.
As these thoughts coalesced, a tiny ripple strummed the cilia hugging the side of Gella’s cheek. I watched in rapt fascination as something I could not perceive moved toward me. Hesitant, afraid I would shatter the strange fragment of eternity, I touched the ripple.
< You have received a Prayer: +12 mana >
< Mana 12/7,328 >
< Would you like to respond? >
I understood.
The words of the message were dull. Human. Stripped of vitality, and a pale echo compared to the tide of emotions backing it. Even if I had bothered learning the language I wouldn't have focused on the words. The words lied, and so I ignored them. It was not with words that I had grown accustomed to speaking, and so I defaulted back to what had become my new normal. Meaning. Intent.
Gella did not wish for the slave collars to disappear. Her intent was more selfish than that. In truth, she wished that she could stop seeing the injustice that had been cruelly revealed to her. The dark hypocrisy in her culture that had always lurked yet never been acknowledged until her friend had pointed it out to her. She wished once more for the days of blissful ignorance where she could look up to her mother with admiration as the woman she wanted to become herself.
Those days were gone but despite her wish to see them return, Gella was not willing to sacrifice everything to bring them back. A significant amount, but not everything. Never everything. For no unbroken soul ever wishes for destruction.
The notification drew my attention, eager to receive a prompt response. A confusing sentiment as time had no power here. I looked closer at the first girl whose soul I had touched and smiled. Inadvertently, the girl had given me a gift. Not the mana. That was negligible. It was this moment of eternity — of reflection — that her prayer had kindled. I appreciated that. It reminded me that frustration was temporary. Maybe right now the world was getting in my way when all I wanted to do was build my dungeon and hang out with my minions, but it wouldn’t always be that way.
I had needed a reminder of who I was. That my problems were not so terrible or urgent that I should let them ruin my mood.
I accepted the notification and intuitively understood I could collect more than was contained within the Prayer itself. Gella had offered much, and her soul complied. A well of mana sloshed within Gella, and the Prayer was the key I could use to access it should I so choose. I scoffed at the notion. Perhaps others more greedy than I would splurge, but I had no use for a couple hundred points of mana. Instead, I reached out to the pool of mana through the Prayer-link and asked for a simple favor.
After all, I could do little when her soul so ardently inhibited my presence.
----------------------------------------
A shiver rolled up Gella’s body and she gasped. It felt as if someone had grabbed her by the heart and squeezed. A powerful tingling erupted all over and she felt both invigorated and exhausted all at once.
< Your prayer has been answered! >
Suddenly, it was everything Gella could do to remain standing. A thoughtform slammed into her mind, blanking out all other thoughts with its intensity, and yet, she knew that there had been effort put into making the message gentle. Regardless, it hurt. Making her feel fragile and small as her thoughts were wiped clean for a brief moment.
A crude black ring filled Gella’s thoughts. It was small but heavy. Far heavier than any such object had any right to be and composed of a primitive black iron. Inscribed on the ring was a string of broken chains formed into alien characters whose meaning Gella couldn’t hope to parse. With the thought came an understanding of its use. One that sunk deep into Gella’s psyche in a way she knew she would never forget.
Gella blinked back tears, revealing the worried face of Kellar. Disoriented, she looked down at her hand and saw the very same ring adorning the middle finger of her left hand.
“Gelllamine Mier! If you do not back away right now, not even the Goddess will save you from my wrath!”
Gella flinched, nearly falling over as her balance failed her. It was too much. Adaptable as the mind was, no mortal was ever meant to experience such a thing.
Footsteps sounded, as well as familiar voices, but Gella ignored them all in favor of not falling over. Then one voice cut through the static as her mother's hand roughly raised her chin.
“Hold Lady Mier,” the priest intoned, striding closer. “Unhand your daughter. This is a matter of divinity now.”
Gella flinched as she was released and nearly stumbled before strong hands caught her. She looked up and saw Christina looking deep into the forest in contemplation. Before she could follow the beautiful woman’s gaze, the priest grabbed her attention in his dazzling robes.
“Dear child,” the priest said. “What happened to you?”
“I-I...”
“A vision? Pray tell child, what has the great Goddess of Earth and Sky deemed worthy of divulging to you?”
Instead of responding Gella heaved her shaking left hand up and pointed the ring at Kellar’s throat. He jerked forward as if an intangible force had grabbed him by the neck, but before he could pull back, his silver collar slammed into the black ring on Gella’s hand.
Click
The sound reverberated through the clearing. Every person, from Guard to farmer, blinked as the silver collar that could only be removed through the skills of a Bishop of the Church snapped open and landed in the mud with a muted thud.
Kellar raised shaking hands to his throat and felt at the raw white skin that hadn’t ever seen the sun. His eyes went glassy as they focused on something only visible to him and a single tear rolled down his cheek.
In the silence that followed everyone heard Gella’s breathless whisper.
“I can free them...all of them...”
----------------------------------------
Ahhh...Magnets. They solve all problems.
I giggled to myself and examined my handiwork. It was a rush job, but I was pretty proud with it, all things considered. There was no way in hell pure magnetite would be able to have a strong enough field to affect the silver in the collars so I had to be creative. I had expanded the ring into a higher dimension and extended the iron outwards a handspan while reversing the polarity. That way, in the space right above the ring, the magnetic field was twice as strong as normal.
My only regret was that I didn’t have access to a superior material like neodymium to reduce the weight of the item, but ehh. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Once Gella gained a few levels she would be able to carry that thing without issues.
The humans erupted into chaos after the shock wore off, but it seemed like the result would favor Gella and the slaves in the end. The priest and his posse were fawning over Gella and examining the ring as if it was a holy artifact from their goddess. I giggled at that, but Gella didn’t refute them. Honestly, that was a good decision as I felt their outlook might change if they knew the ring was from me.
But on to more important matters.
I had received a Prayer from a human. The depths of this discovery astounded me as it spawned more questions than it answered. This world contained dungeons and had a shocking similarity to the dungeon stories I had read on earth. I had used the knowledge to make some educated guessery in the past, but now that knowledge implied only one thing.
I had received a Prayer from a human. Therefore, I was a God.
If I was a god, then it meant one of two things from what I knew about deities. One, anyone could become a god and it was the amount and intensity of Prayers that determined their strength. Or two, all Dungeons were gods.
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It made sense in a way. I could create life, and mold the environment on a whim. I was also omniscient regarding everything in my dungeon, whether that be the location of an item or the structural integrity of a material. The only chink in the idea was that my omnipotence was stopped by humans — or souls in general. Perhaps that was just a weakness of gods in this world, or maybe, once I grew to a high enough level, I would be able to surpass the weaknesses of dungeons and ascend to becoming a true god.
It bore thinking about, and it gave me hope for the future. Right now, however, I had more immediate problems to deal with.
< You have acquired: [Corrupted Transference]! >
Corrupted Transference:
Transfer any affliction on a sentient to yourself
1,293 minute cooldown
Lucky me. Probably the best of the three bad options mutated by Deia. Unlike the other two options, I could simply not use it, but it was still irksome. Deia might be a god, but she had no rig—
A small black tendril slithered into my vision and I instantly went on guard. Purple spots dotted the string as if it was diseased. Like Deia’s fibers, it materialized out of thin air and touched upon my interface despite my every attempt to push it away. Deia’s golden strands had moved in smooth synchrony, but this singular strand possessed a spasmodic twitching as if trying to occupy every configuration possible. The strand jerked closer and I flinched. It heaved, as if bringing up bile, and spat out a black orb with a silver fog shifting within it before slipping away and vanishing.
< You have been offered a skill! >
< Would you like to accept? >
The orb hovered in my vision, and I stared at it with no small amount of trepidation. Things were happening too fast. It was as if my recent actions had garnered the attention of some higher beings. First, it was Deia, but now this strange purple tendril was offering me a skill that I had no way of determining its effects.
On the one hand, new skills were a good thing. Most of my skills were positive and allowed me to diversify my creatures, improve my dungeon, and overall strengthen my position. However, I knew very well that some skills had the opposite effect. If this orb was not what I thought it was, then it could wreak havoc with my build. Any number of effects were possible, and all I could do was trust or distrust the diseased tendril.
The thing was, I was inclined to accept the skill. Where Deia had forced upon me three new mutated options, this tiny purple tendril gave me a choice. It was a fundamental difference in approach and my only source of information regarding the skill.
Besides, I would need the aid of another deity in the future, if that indeed was what the tendril was.
I was no longer purposeless. I enjoyed building up my dungeon and expanding as I explored different ways of crafting my creatures and gaining mana. However, the rage I felt at Deia’s interference ate at me. It didn't simmer or boil. It barely even spat. It simply waited, biding its time in the depths of my gut, like a cold stone weighing me down. I hated that goddess with every fiber of my being.
The goddess may be great, but challenging her was possible. I was not some mortal foolishly spitting in the face of the gods. No, if my deductions were correct, I was a budding Goddess in my own right. Perhaps weaker at the moment, but still able to enter the game. Oh, and I seriously missed playing games.
If Deia wanted to play, then I would find some way to destroy her, then teabag her corpse as I danced in the ashes.
Long ago, when I had initially spawned, I had observed the action of the church and been disgusted with it. Naive as I was, I had decided to approach the issue, and instill the values of Earth onto this alien world once I was strong enough. Some deep part of me still wished to do that, but I knew that such a righteous war would never last. Not because it was right or wrong, but because nothing so shallow could motivate me for the months or years it would take to reform this world. However, I now had a new motivation. One steeped in selfishness and backed by rage. This was a cause I could get behind, because no one, not even a goddess, would be allowed to ruin my build.
With a flick of my thoughts, I accepted the skill.
< You have acquired: [Chaos Untold] >
Chaos Untold:
+4 to physical level upon destroying a dungeon
Freedom to choose personal skills upon destroying Deia
I breathed out the tension as I read the new skill. It was a boon and a half and a far greater surprise than I had initially anticipated. Clearly whatever God had granted me this skill hated Deia as much as I did. Not only did it grant me the ability to accelerate my leveling, but it hung a tantalizing reward at the end of the implicit quest. Should I ever defeat Deia, I would finally be able to choose my own skills.
I would be glad to accept this quest, as it aligned with my values perfectly. Once I had finished it, however, I would have to track down whoever had granted me [Chaos Untold] and thank them for the boon.
But as is often the case, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The dwarves were setting up a proper bulwark deep in the tunnels and while I knew it would not be difficult to dig around them and destroy Rockwood once and for all, I had no qualms with the dwarves and didn’t wish to antagonize their god.
Perhaps there was a more peaceful solution.
I directed my attention to one human in particular. Christina was working with Gella and organizing the Guards to hand out food and blankets to the gaggle of freed slaves. The rest of the people looked on in confusion as if unsure how to react to the spectacle. Near the back, I noticed the head priest — and all of the assembled priests — looking down at the activities with barely concealed contempt.
Good. It would be far easier to destroy them if they stuck to their heinous ways.
I reached out to Christina and sent her a message. Not through Cortana, but directly. I was done hiding who I was now, and how I communicated. I was a dungeon, and I was going to kill a god. There was no room there for childish bouts of insecurity. Humans were adaptable, Christina would learn how to hear my voice over time.
In this message, I relayed all the information that had been hidden from her regarding the war with Rockwood. How I had initially found it, approached it, and been rejected with claws and teeth. I then conveyed how I had forged onwards, digging deep within it only to be pushed back by the dwarves. My frustration with the situation oozed out of the message and how the situation was untenable.
I finished the message with a single ultimatum. The conflict with Rockwood would end. If the dwarves could not get their dungeon to back off, I would destroy it with no mercy.
The girl stumbled as my mana seeped into her soul, but with the help of Cortana, she stayed standing. That caused some alarm among the other humans, but she quickly waved them off and rushed away from the crowd.
Wonderful. Meanwhile, I began expanding my sky castle above where I knew the center of Rockwood should be. It would be prudent to be prepared should negotiations fail.
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Christina shivered as she jogged her way through the Deep Dark. The smoky black tendrils gnawed at her, dropping her resistance by nearly thirty percent as she delved ever deeper with only the word of a dungeon fairy to keep her safe. But what choice did she have? All her fears were coming to pass, and the dungeon was on the verge of going rampant all because of dwarves of all things.
Her only guiding light was the small glowing fairy that illuminated the area in front of her with an unnaturally flat light that left no shadows. Most troubling of all, they had not met a single monster throughout the trek through the pitch-dark tunnels, which only served to increase Christina's nerves as she ran.
“This is crazy,” she murmured, clutching her elbows as she tried to see through the oppressive darkness. It was so dark that she had started to see little spots of light in her vision that she was sure were illusions of monsters hiding just outside her vision. “Just absolutely insane.”
“I know right!” Cortana said, stamping her little fairy foot and eliciting a puff of spark. “Like, why do the tunnels have to be so small? I hate crawling and I had to get rid of all my balloons!”
“Cortana, please. I need you to make sense right now. It is very dark and I have no idea what I am doing. Do you have any information at all about the dwarves? Or maybe some strategy that will convince them to back off, cause dwarves hate humans. Why would they possibly listen to me?”
“Oh sorry!” Cortana said and suddenly, the sphere of light around them expanded until Christina could barely tell she was in magical darkness at all. “I’ve never met any dwarves either, so I don’t know how you can convince them, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out together. Anyway, I had a question for you. How long has Deia been around?”
“Where is this coming from?”
“I don’t know, the dungeon is curious I suppose.”
“The dungeon...” Christina shivered as she descended down a ladder that didn’t look like it fit with the rest of the environment. “Alright, well. The scriptures say that the Great Goddess has been watching over us for a thousand, thousand years. She has always favored abstention, but around a millennia ago, she changed her policy.”
“What caused her to change it?”
Christina shrugged. “The kingdom was just coming to its own and there was a series of Dungeon Breaks that threatened the safety of our entire species. The Dungeon of Souls and the Dungeon of Illusions to name a few. Say, Cortana? Could you try and calm down the Dungeon? A dungeon break wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
“Don’t worry about that. Say? Who did humanity pray to before Deia took a more active role?”
Christina dropped the last couple of feet down the ladder and nearly landed in a pool of pungent slime. Her eyes teared up at the smell as she raised her shirt to cover her mouth. All around her, the walls were scored with signs of battle, and corpses and what was left of them littered the hallway.
“Well, there were a few, but the history books are vague about the pre-Deia gods. I know they existed, but ever since Deia’s apotheosis, many of the histories before her time have been destroyed. Where are we?”
“We’re close. Just step down the passage and—Oh hi! You must be Tank! I was so looking forward to meeting you!”
Down the tunnel full of corpses, a gigantic glass golem with electric blue eyes stood. It was busy inspecting the ceiling, but when it noticed them, it stepped aside and seemed to twist in space to make more room for them. Its motions were strange, and whenever its limbs moved, it made Christina’s gorge rise for a reason she couldn’t explain.
“Thanks, Tank!” Cortana twirled forward. “I don’t think I would’ve fit otherwise. Come on, Christina. Let’s go. Mind the floor boundary. It's hard not to trip passing through it. ”
Christina hugged the opposite wall as the giant and shuffled closer. As she neared, she noticed a ripple in the air, but at Cortana’s urging she stepped through carefully. Suddenly, looking at the transparent giant didn’t tie her stomach into knots but a new problem arose.
“Cortana!” she hissed under her breath. “Is this biome dangerous? I feel like I’m getting pulled apart every time I move.”
“Isn’t it great!” Cortana sang out. “Come on, it won’t hurt you. Just feels a little funny and we are almost there!”
She ran on and came upon two dozen one-eyed monsters covered in spines. She slowed then but none attacked. Instead, they seemed more interested in each other, hissing and gurgling and making remarkably playful gestures.
It was a stark departure from her standard monster experience, and she couldn’t help but gulp as she looked upon the formidable force. Each one was well into the third tier and radiated power. It was remarkable how quickly the dungeon had progressed and Christina knew that even a fully kitted-out Guard squad led by Captain Arcturus would struggle to battle this force on the open field. Let alone in their home.
Suddenly, heavy footfalls came from up ahead. Christina snapped her gaze up and froze in terror as a twisting mound of flesh barreled toward her. A scream lodged in her throat as her brain struggled to comprehend what was before her eyes. The creature approached in a confusing mass of rotating flesh, eyes, and teeth. It towered above her at nearly ten feet tall, though wasn’t nearly as large as the glass golem from before. Most disconcerting of all was how the endless twisting of the creature's flesh left holes and gaps in the overall structure that were just...impossible. At times the creature had four legs and only one eye but at others only one leg with a dozen eyes floating above it while the rest of its bulk hung precipitously in a way that defied gravity.
“Betsy!” Cortana giggled, flying up to the twisting mass of eyes, spines, and flesh. “Hi hi! Meet Christina! Christina, Betsy.”
Christina shook like a leaf in a storm as a mouth full of razors came into focus underneath a humongous eye. A strange harsh language rumbled out, full of staccato consonants and abrupt pauses that lacked the flowing beauty of Common.
“Betsy says it is awesome to meet you and is asking if you want to kill some monsters together sometime?”
“Uhh, heh...” Christina huffed then shook her head in chagrin. In for a penny in for a pound. It was obvious that there were plenty of aspects of the dungeon that hadn’t been discovered yet. This was pretty crazy but wasn’t any different from any of the other crazy things she’d seen recently. “Hi, there...Maybe we c-can go monster hunting another time. I have to talk to the dwarves...if they’re around?”
She let the sentence trail off in question and the huge monstrosity — Betsy — turned around, spinning in place without ever raising its legs off the floor. It grumbled something else in a tone that made Christina’s stomach clench and stared deeper down the tunnel. After a second, it shrugged its huge shoulders and lumbered off to the side before it shrunk to a fraction of its original size and began playing with another Nothic.
“Betsy says they are just down there. We should hurry. We only have eighteen minutes to discuss with them before we will have to run back up to the surface.”
Christina continued down the tunnel until she came to a rough stone bulwark.
“Greetings Dwarves!” Christina called out, raising both hands in as unthreatening a manner as she could.
Ask to talk to the guy with the ghostly horns on his helmet. He seems important.
Christina bit her lip as a dwarf head peaked over the barrier before vanishing. She had to convince them to control their dungeon. She just had to.