The pit trap was a surprisingly gentle slide though the darkness, and the rooms underneath were smaller. The pattern established above continued, with the glass changing color every room. Each of the new rooms were a square, about a hundred feet across on each side. They were all full of more of the same balls of spikes. However, they appeared in smaller quantities, and Mimic and K easily wiped them out. We exchanged brief conversation as we gathered the scraps of the monsters.
“Convention centers are weird when they’re empty.” I said, “Massive, Meaningless rooms. A place meant to be filled, but all that’s here is space.”
[You have contributed to the deaths of 3 “Glass Slicers”. +90 Potential, +9 Net Quanta]
“I can’t relate.” Mimic said, “I’ve only been when they’re deserted.”
“I can see choosing not to go to cons, but you’ve never been to a career fair?” I asked.
“Superheroics pays the bills. I don’t plan to do anything else.” Mimic said, “Even if I wanted to, I probably couldn’t. Too many people in one room and I get overwhelmed. What are Career Fairs like?”
“Miserable and unfun.” I said, “Waiting in lines for hours to talk to someone, only to get told “apply online” almost every time. I’m almost glad I’ll never have to go to one again.”
[You have contributed to the deaths of 5 “Glass Slicers”. +150 Potential, +15 Net Quanta]
K said, “Sometimes there are upsides to being thrown into the fire from the frying pan. As long as you’re trying to make things better for everyone, you don’t have to feel bad about preferring the new status quo. At least, not unless you start causing problems or trying to force it to stay.”
“Thanks.” I said.
“I’m not lying to make you feel better.” K snarled, “It’s true, you idiot. Objectively better places can be bad for you. Take Paradise and me.”
[You have contributed to the deaths of 7 “Glass Slicers”. +210 Potential, +21 Net Quanta]
“That’s not a fair example.” I said, “Paradise’s Judge doesn’t care about anyone, and Eris does.” (1)
K paused, and stared at me for a minute, “I hate seers. Do you really believe her act?”
“It’s not an act.” I said, “You know it’s not an act. Your Gift lets you see that it isn’t.”
“She could fool it.” K huffed, “Twisting the truth isn’t actually difficult.”
“It’s harder than you’d think.” I said, “But it’s definitely true that your ‘insights’ are misleading.”
“I can’t decide whether they’re the best of my three Gifts or the worst.” Kay grumbled.
[You have contributed to the deaths of 9 “Glass Slicers”. +270 Potential, +27 Net Quanta]
“You don’t have all three yet.” I said, “You’re not just a Taleborn anymore. You were brought back as a human, and humans can have their own powers. You have two Gifts: The “Eye of Perfect Flaws” and the “Barrier of the Luminous Night”, as shorthand names. Your duplication trick is something else.”
“How long has Eris known this?” K growled.
“She hasn’t.” I said, “She knows you do cape work, but she doesn’t know what your abilities look like at all. It’s none of my business.”
“But you still dug into it yourself.” K said.
“Because my visions cared about this. They’re what told me, and I figured you’d want to know” I said, and sighed, “It’s funny that you must’ve been running around here for years, and I didn’t even realize you were real.”
“It’s not like we did anything high profile.” K said, “We weren’t famous.”
[You have contributed to the deaths of 11 “Glass Slicers”. +330 Potential, +33 Net Quanta]
“We weren’t trying to be.” Mimic said, “I was politically contentious. Both in that I existed, and in that I lived here, rather than back in Ev. Reprise didn’t exactly have the powers to make it big, and Cataclysm was just happy as long as we kept her in parts for tinkering with.”
“Speak for yourself, Mimic.” K said, “I’m not exactly keen on all my power coming from Eris’ people.”
[You have contributed to the deaths of 13 “Glass Slicers”. +390 Potential, +39 Net Quanta]
If any of us didn’t understand how Taleborn worked, we’d have asked. Mimic had learned a long time ago, and so had I. Taleborn were a fairly low class of “Legendary” deities. They were old stories of the allegedly-mortal and lesser magic made into minor gods. They got power from awareness of the stories they were part of, and awareness of their deeds since. There needed to be an unreality to the stories that created them, and those stories needed to be known and not worshiped.
A Taleborn might form from stories that might have been of real historical figures, like Robin Hood or Cassandra of Troy. It could only happen once the stories told about them had deviated enough from the actual person that people came to think of them as a symbolic figure. William appeared often enough in folklore and jokes that you could stitch a story together from just that. Robin Hood had many storied offshoots - the person probably had existed, but the character was far from that, and everyone knew it. The Robin of history was not exactly the folklore figure. The same principle applied across the spectrum; fairy tales and distorted truths both could become a Taleborn.
All Taleborn gained energy from awareness of their deeds. K had almost certainly lost her ties to the story that had created her, but Eris had saved her from the death that would have quickly followed. By now, she had done enough for Eris that her new story was known in the Abyss. Unfortunately, it also meant nearly everyone who had believed in her was dependent on Eris. It might not have been hard to cut off her power. If that happened, K would be powerless, and quickly lose any abilities she previously had. If K didn’t know that her body was human until today, she might’ve even believed that it would kill her.
I believed Eris wouldn’t kill K, and for more reasons than that K was absolutely integral to her short-term objectives. K believed that Eris wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice her once she outlived her usefulness. Either of us could have been right. I had more knowledge of Eris’ actual behavior, but K had seen Eris’ soul. Neither view would be a flawless predictor of her future actions.
[You have contributed to the deaths of 15 “Glass Slicers”. +450 Potential, +45 Net Quanta]
Mimic broke the awkward silence as we caught our breath after the fight, “Ashlyn, what was your favorite starting class in the game?”
I grinned, always happy to talk about my hobbies, “It was a two-way tie. When I was playing for the True Destroyer Endings, I favored Diabolism, but when I was trying to reach the True Survivor Endings, I preferred a Legend or Sigil base.”
“Base?” Mimic asked.
“Multiclassing was a thing.” I answered, “It wasn’t an easy or simple thing, but it is a thing. You and K already have decent combinations.” (2)
“Having more classes is a good thing, right?” Mimic asked.
“Mostly.” I said, “Each class you get makes getting the next even more difficult. But free is free.”
“How would one acquire additional classes?” K asked.
“Artifacts with certain powers have a chance of giving a second class, if you use them correctly.” I said, “I’m certain that’s how Langwidere made you, Mimic. Past two, they’re more likely to kill you or swap a class out than give you a new one, though. Past that, you need to either have fate on your side, or you need to use the systems for players. In the game, some lucky NPC players were called ‘Gifted’ and mysteriously acquired secondary classes, but the actual players had to manage fairly tricky achievements, and then spend a fortune in Quanta and Potential to do it.”
“What kind of achievements?” Mimic asked.
“Major ones, specifically associated with the class you wanted to acquire.” I said, “The easiest route to acquiring the Legend class would be to kill one of a Paradise’s highest ranked warriors. The requirements also got harsher the more classes you already had. I’ll shoot you a link to a guide on this, if you remind me later.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
[You have contributed to the deaths of 17 “Glass Slicers”. +510 Potential, +17 Net Quanta]
“What are you planning on aiming for?” Mimic asked.
“I’ve got a while before I need to make a decision.” I said, “If I wanted to exclusively mess around with spiritual realms, I’d probably go with Legend or one of the Sigils. An offshoot of Angel would be interesting, but getting possessed would fill the same niche, and wouldn’t involve the side effects.” (3)
“Side effects?” Mimic asked.
“If I picked up the Angel class, I’d be an Angel, just like you’re a Fae. Angels don’t have complete free will.” I said, “They define themselves by a single virtue, and can’t take action against it. The more powerful variants can be more flexible, with multiple virtues, but every angel’s power wanes when they’re not using it for their virtue or virtues. An angel of Love becomes powerless when not acting for love, an angel of Condemnation must Condemn the guilty, and so on. The rules vary between virtues, but they have no power when not serving their virtue.”
“What does that do to your brain?” Mimic asked.
“Exactly.” I said, “It becomes hard to even hypothetically consider taking any action outside your domain. The best way to fight an angel is to immediately start arguing that hurting you is against its principles. Anyways, if I wanted to diversify, I’d grab an offshoot of Sigil, I think. Being symbolically tied to a concept is much less messy than being tied to a story, or being absolutely bound to a principle.”
That was when we entered the next room. Until now, every room had only held the spikes, but now six glass butterflies appeared in addition to six spikes.
Each one had a pair of intricate glass wings. Their wings were at least three feet long each, and an orb of white light sat between them. The orbs fired off a constant violet laser, swinging it towards us in an instant.
I slammed down [Blood of the Sacrificed].
K’s disposable body charged the butterflies. Their lasers brushed against her skin, causing no obvious harm. Her body swung its sword into the one it was aiming for. In an instant, a bubble of energy appeared between the sword and the butterfly, and the blade slammed into it. The butterfly was knocked across the room in an instant, and slammed into the wall, shield still glowing. Once it came to a stop, the shield vanished.
Mimic snarled in frustration, and charged forwards, ignoring the butterflies to take down the spikes.
Two of the butterflies turned their lasers towards me, and I yelped. The lasers shallowly burned my skin. It was very painful, but seemed no more harmful than a stripe of sunburn. I wasn’t sure if these things would even be able to kill a human without a few hours of trying.
I grabbed one with [Beast in the Blood], and its shield failed to save it from the crimson shape that leapt from the blood and sank back into the depths with it inside.
Meanwhile, Mimic and K were trying to figure out how to handle them. K had the reflexes to hit any of them, but usually it would manage to block her blow. She’d managed to kill one of them, but she hadn’t figured out how to reproduce the feat yet.
Mimic, on the other hand, had trouble even hitting them. They flapped around like butterflies, but when Mimic tried to tackle them, they would abruptly dash away from Mimic’s leaps. It was like they could fly by two different means, and used the second exclusively for dodging. Mimic was learning quickly, though. On her next leap, she lashed out with a limb as she leapt past it.
That hit it, but it still managed to shield itself. Mimic immediately leapt after it, and crushed it as its shield vanished. Without verbally communicating, the capes fell into a pattern. K knocked the butterflies at Mimic, and Mimic leapt for them before they could recover from the impact.
Within two minutes, the room was cleared again. The next two rooms only offered more enemies and opportunities for them to refine their techniques.
[You have contributed to the deaths of 27 “Glass Slicers” and 27 Fae Sprites! +1,620 Potential, +162 Net Quanta]
The room after that held a pair of minibosses, each a “Glass Slicer” with a glowing core. I got one of them with [Beast in the Blood], but the other one managed to be an issue.
Like the butterflies, it would shield itself and abruptly hurled itself in different directions when Mimic hurled herself towards it. Each point of its body fired off incessant violet lasers like the Butterflies did. Unlike them, it didn’t get knocked across the room with a single blow, but it used those blows to build up speed. After a few failed attempts to take down K’s attacking body, it turned its focus to me and K’s defensive body.
K did a good job of protecting us, but it was still scary to see a whirling sphere of spikes coming for you at thirty miles per hour. After six attempts, each of which felt like a close call, K managed to bat it into Mimic’s path.
Mimic didn’t hesitate, and smashed it in an instant. It might’ve had new tricks, but without its shield, it smashed just as easily as the rest.
[You have contributed to the deaths of 2 Fae Glass Dancers! +2000 Potential, +200 Net Quanta]
K laughed, “That was almost tricky.”
“Thanks for keeping me safe.” I said.
K said, “Don’t thank me for basic teamwork. It’s insulting.” (4)
The room after that was a long hallway. Doors that refused to open lined both sides. In the very middle of the hallway, a tiny chest sat on a table.
K opened it, and pulled out three discs.
[Your party has opened a chest! You get 1/3rd of the 15000 quanta within! +500 Net Quanta]
She tossed the stack to me, “Take them.”
“What?” I asked.
“Any of them that’re good for you, take for yourself.” K said.
I looked down at them. Two of them had paintings of the glass butterfly and the miniboss I had beaten. The third was simply a blotch of red bloodstain.
{ Fae Glass Dancer (B, Lv.1):
+25% Offense Capacity
}
{ Fae Glass Butterfly (C, Lv. 1):
+12.5% Magic Stats
}
{
Lake of The Sacrificed (B, Lv.1):
+25% Dreamer Stats
}
I grinned, “Thanks.”
“Don’t get yourself killed.” K said.
I tossed the disc with the Butterfly on it back to her. “This wouldn’t do me any good, either of you could use it. The other two are nice.”
“Keep them.” K said, “Are we almost through?”
“I don’t know.” I said, “This is almost the normal length, but we haven’t seen the dungeon’s gimmick room yet.”
“Gimmick room?” Mimic chimed in, as K passed her the disc.
“You don’t normally get a dungeon that’s just linear progression through rooms of monsters to a boss fight.” I tried to explain, “There should be something else, especially in a dungeon like this. The boss fight wouldn’t be the gimmick room.”
“So at least two more rooms.” K said, “Possibly more.”
“I wouldn’t expect another miniboss, and the early dungeons don’t have variety in their monsters.” I said, “The gimmick room and then the boss. Maybe more monsters, but unless they’re related to the gimmick room, I don’t think so. Early dungeons generally don’t have new enemies after the miniboss. There might be secret areas, if there are any more in here.”
“Anything we should expect from gimmick rooms?” Mimic asked.
“Something to do with the building’s original purpose.” I said, “There’s not really a set in stone predictor as to what there will be, but you can almost always trace back the logic after you’ve seen it. Sometimes they affect the rest of the dungeon, but we can definitely rule it out this time.”
We walked through the door together.
---
(1) William, "the Judge of Heaven” was the tyrannical leader of K’s Paradise when she left. He might’ve been based on the religious figure, but he was based on his role in folklore, not in religion. When the story started with a man who stood at the gates of heaven and forbade entrance, and you ripped out the explanation for who told him to do it - it wouldn’t be hard for someone like that to turn monstrous.
(2) It wasn’t like classes decided what you could do, in general. Most classes were limited, of course, but only the most simplistic lacked true flexibility. For the most part, it decided how your powers worked, not what they could do. K’s Sigil parts would always be associated with “Mirrors” and “Light”, but there were a lot of new tricks she could figure out if she had the time, and her Legend parts could be changed if she was willing to pay the costs. As a Fae, Mimic probably could learn or invent magic, though it wouldn’t be nearly as useful as her general excessive durability and regeneration. I was pretty sure her other class was actually one of the "does only one thing" classes, though. (5)
(3) I mean, I’d have to be careful about it, and I’d have to return Eris’ soul if I actually wanted to do that, but I could do that. Of course, keeping an Angel inside you for too long would unlock the ‘Angelic’ class whether you wanted it or not, so it probably wasn’t a good idea if I wasn’t willing to do it permanently.
(4) In No Savior Needed, K was always like this. Unless she obviously needed to be otherwise, she was never anything other than abrasive. Even at her nicest, she didn’t like to show it. Gratitude irritated her, especially if she thought it was for something she considered the 'bare minimum'. Still, she might've been being more abrasive than usual. If she'd figured out my contract with Eris, she probably would've been on edge this entire time. Of course, she wasn't terribly fond of 'other sellouts', either, so her extra hostility didn't mean she was.
(5) Sorry about the footnote recursion, but this felt distinct enough to deserve its own footnote. There were only a handful of ways to actually look at a character's class and stats if they weren't yours, and all of them were both rare and situationsal. None of them were common enough to be used on Mimic or K. The fandom had ways to check if a character had a class - Fae couldn't lie, items that only worked for Legends, and so on - but most of the one-trick classes didn't have any way to detect them.