Herman the Fairy was no different than he'd been the last couple times I'd seen him, except that he had an air about him that was far more serious than it had ever been. His teacup and saucer were missing, for once, but more than that, his spider legs were all curled up tightly, and his humanoid feet and arms were all in a coherent-seeming "serious businessman" posture. For all that I couldn't see his face under the mask, I could somehow tell that underneath, he was quite serious; somehow, the graveyard stylistic notes to his fairy wings seemed more grim and foreboding than they ever had been before, as did every other piece of his clashing ensemble.

"Mr. Applebee." He bowed politely. "Thank you for requesting me as your arbiter. I trust that you have some concern?"

Merry, I have to say, had a hard time being completely stoic in the face of him. Oh, wow, that makes so much sense, she said as she studied him, rubbing the little laurel crown she'd gotten when she consumed Julius. It's like you can't just merge with a bunch of items, you have to take the pieces in between...

I forced myself to tune her out.

"Herman, thank you for coming." I gestured to Kalamitus. "I was negotiating with this Dungeon God yesterday and felt very strongly that he was pressuring me into a one-sided deal."

"I offered you an open-ended bargain!" Kalamitus' voice was exasperated, but no longer did I feel like I was on the receiving end of a crushing wave of intimidation. Now, it seemed, he felt obliged to make his case to someone else, and that left me under a lot less pressure. "You could have virtually anything you wanted! Yes, I grant, I put some pressure on you to insist that you accept, but--"

"Kalamitus."

The spider-fairy's words interrupted the God's speech as though by force of spell, and he stopped speaking. Herman let the word hang there for a moment before continuing.

"We have not interacted before, Kalamitus, but I have read a great deal about you. I think it's fair to say given your record that you are very capable of emotional abuse whether you intend it or not. Yes?" Herman's voice, normally very bland, held an edge to it for just that moment that was unmistakable.

Kalamitus studied the fairy, frustrated, for a long moment, and then sighed. "I've been told that before, yes."

"It's also fair to say that you rarely are forced to deal with people as unprepared for a negotiation as Mr. Applebee is. Correct?"

Kalamitus' head slumped to the ground like a frustrated puppy who'd been told he wasn't going to get to go for a walk anytime soon, and his eyes drifted away from the two of us and up to the sky painted on the walls of the room. "...Yes," he answered, like a spoiled child.

"Then there is no reason to suspect malice in Mr. Applebee's actions or phrasing. If he is intimidated, an impartial arbiter acting on his behalf can only possibly make things go more smoothly for all parties involved." Herman floated, without even bothering to flap his wings, up to where Kalamitus could see him, and he looked very prim and proper in his stance, even as his equipment continued to be a confusing mish-mash of stereotypes that didn't fit together in even the slightest possible way.

"And I accept the need for an arbiter," came the condescending reply, his voice oozing frustration, "and have no objection to your presence."

"Would you then summarize your offer?"

Kalamitus' eyes, instead of focusing on Herman, focused on me, and the look he gave me was ugly. "A negotiable award, not to exceed," and suddenly he said something that I couldn't hear or understand, which Merry seemed to hear but be confused by, "in exchange for following my dir--"

"No open ended demands," said Herman, and his voice was deeper, and somehow conveyed a heaviness, an authority, that I had never seen the fairy wield. I could almost... almost sense something in the air around him, like a giant demonic spider flexing, but it also have been my fevered imagination. Even with him on my side, Herman did kind of mess with my head.

"...in exchange for... grr..." Kalamitus seemed to be wrestling with some kind of mental block. "...for promising to undertake a Full Clear Quest."

Herman nodded, and turned back to me, gliding forward very professionally, his wings adjusting slightly but not flapping to keep him aloft. "For what it's worth, I don't think he intended to use the open ended demand for anything, but it's better to have these sorts of things nipped in the bud. Now, Jerry, I must warn you that your negotiating position here is not strong. I have a rough idea of how much he intends to give, and it's not a bad offer. As a neutral arbiter, however, I will require that you also not have open ended demands. I trust you understand."

I wasn't entirely sure how to phrase what I wanted in specifics, despite having thought about it. "In summary... information and guidance. But more specifically, I suppose, guidance on how to properly use the technique of Cultivation to become powerful enough to challenge the Heretic Knight Bo, as well as guidance on reaching greater heights with my class and skills--"

"Be specific," Herman snapped, and I was surprised to find that the fairy did in fact seem to be upset with me.

"...whatever guidance I need to go beyond S-rank with my Telekinesis skill, and to reach S-rank with Telepathy, along with whatever guidance is available for making better use of my self-created class, and..." I frowned, thinking. "I don't know if this is possible, but I feel like my class really should have been broken up into several skills, and it doesn't seem to be. I don't--"

Although I couldn't see Herman's face, somehow his mask gave of a sense that he was grinning madly. "Oh, Mr. Applebee, there is something here that you seem to not understand. I'm not tied in to the system, exactly, but even I know that matters of Class and Skill construction are handled entirely by the Sovereigns that work for Mr. Beneath." He pivoted and just started rambling, as though he were suddenly and finally free to take as much time as he damned well pleased to say whatever. "The Sovereigns, you understand, are the ones who run the day to day operation of the Labyrinthine Star--what a pretentious name, don't you agree?--and they are specifically responsible for managing all alterations and changes to the underlying fabric."

"While Kalamitus and the other Dungeon Gods are responsible for guidance--responsible for helping people achieve their maximum potential under the Star's systems, the Sovereigns are the ones that alter, adapt, maintain, control, and devise every system and structure within it, except where the Lord Beneath the Labyrinthine Star chooses to exercise his authority and do any or all of their jobs for them, or where he sets rules, limitations, boundaries, bindings, controls, and privileges that they must adhere to."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I pursed my lips, both reeling that we had taken a detour to talk about it, and also astonished by the concept of seven people maintaining a system that was regulating the entire planet. My thoughts drifted to the mysterious Artificer that I'd met. "So is--"

"Ah, ah, ah," Herman interrupted, coyly, with a tiny bit of levity to his voice. "I'm not here to answer your questions, Mr. Applebee. Let's stay on topic, now, shall we?"

I frowned. The sudden reversal... had to mean that his whole diatribe was another loophole he could use to leak information, but he couldn't go any further? I tried to force my thoughts back on track. "If that's not his purview... then any information regarding what I would need to do to make it happen, and any advice he may have."

"That's still an open-ended demand."

I shrugged, feeling suddenly frustrated. It was nice seeing Herman render the dragon-man helpless, but being on the other end of it didn't feel great either. "I don't know how to specify a level of advice to receive. I have low expectations, but surely he must have something."

Herman lifted his chin at me without saying anything, and I felt like he wasn't accepting that answer.

I considered the circumstances a little bit more. "...if nothing else," I said suddenly, abandoning that whole train of thought as I remembered one of the things I'd intended to get to from the start, "I want some assurances that Kalamitus will not attempt to ...manipulate me, intimidate me, or otherwise attempt to control me, after this Full Clear Quest stuff is finished. Aside from that, all of my demands revolve around surviving to defeat Bo, and..." and I swallowed, preparing myself for maybe-disappointment, "...if feasible, using my Devil's Rebirth Contract skill to free him from the Fairy Queen's control."

Suddenly, both Herman and Kalamitus gave me nearly matching odd looks. I didn't need Merry's fairy system-fuckery powers to sense both of them suddenly digging into some vast codex of information in order to learn more about the skill in question. That surprised me, since I had assumed that at least Kalamitus must have known--either because he had access to my skills, or because Xarz-whatever had told him.

At about the same moment, both of them gave me very unsettling grins--well, I assume so with Herman, given the feeling he gave off.

Kalamitus, in what was a first since Herman had arrived, seemed to be re-energized by this sudden vulnerability in me. "Why, Mr. Applebee," he said, as though he had innocently stumbled into something shady going on, and was ever so keen to make use of it somehow. "That's a most peculiar skill. I assume that it has something to do with you being a Blooded Dungeoneer--ah, now that I think about it, this was a matter that dear Xzyrtvwartcihz got himself in trouble for, wasn't it? In a first dungeon at that, giving people access to all kinds of taboo things. Hm, hm, hm." He seemed, somehow, a bit pleased with himself. "Well, to answer your question--can it be used to revive Bo without him being under the Fairy Queen's Control? Yes, with some difficulty."

And there it was. I felt myself fall a bit. No doubt, it required a high skill level to accomplish that task...

"The question, Mr. Applebee, is the price."

I frowned. Price?

"You doubtless recall if you ever used the skill--you have used it, haven't you?"

Oddly, I found myself unable to answer that question, as the Amended Non-disclosure Agreement stirred within my class, somewhere. I fixed my eyes on Herman, conscious as I did so that he had claimed before to be incredibly capable of determining subtle tells (not that I had, at the time, believed a word of it), and said as evenly as I could manage, "I am not permitted to speak on that matter."

"He means yes," interpreted Herman, simply and without missing a beat. "And somehow that incident was a humiliation to Xzyrtvwartcihz, and he has agreed not to speak on the matter in exchange for a pittance."

"Hm!" Kalamitus sounded impressed, I thought. "You know, I seem to recall that when he came to advise me he'd found a candidate, he really seemed ...off. Young ones like that, you know, it's hard to tell exactly what they're thinking, but I suppose it must have been some silly mistake that he inflated into a grand problem in his head."

Herman and I stayed silent on the matter.

"In any case," said the dragon after a long moment, "assuming you've used the skill, you remember the cost, don't you?"

It took a very long moment for me to actually remember, in spite of the trauma that had accompanied the event. Or... maybe because of it? Did trauma work like that? "You mean the experience cost." The experience cost that had dropped my level substantially just before a boss fight, forcing me into a fight for my life. The fight for my life, really. Since then... nothing had ever been the same.

"The system tends to make things seem simpler than they are. The details on the skill you mentioned, and I say this with no humor at all, fill a small book." Kalamitus's eyes fixed on me, and I suddenly felt Merry scrambing to catch a very large data packet, either one being leaked or being offered on some kind of connection that I didn't have access to. "The summary being that your soul must dominate their own, weakened soul. Generally, this requires you to be more powerful than they are, with more experience and levels--which makes the proposition tricky enough. In the case of a contested soul, as Bo's soul is..." he shrugged. "You must overpower the owner, which you cannot."

It took a long time for those words to really sink in. "I... can't?"

Kalamitus' head dipped down to be level with mine. "Not alone," he said, with a wide, predatory grin.

"I do apologize, Jerry," added Herman after a minute. "If I'd known you were thinking about this earlier, I might have warned you, but there are few ways to cheat death exactly because Mr. Beneath chooses for it to be so." He moved up and gestured for me to come aside for a moment, and I stepped away with him, a bit numb. I thought I'd been prepared, but...

Herman's tiny fairy hand laid on my shoulder, sympathetically, as he spoke again. The area of skin around it almost immediately started to feel like it was on fire, as though some great tide of energy was leaking out of him, but I didn't pay attention to that, or not really. "Death, you see," he said conversationally, "is part of how the whole thing works. You'll see it if you ever fight in the Fairy Dungeons, but everything that dies is reused in pieces all over the place. My great-aunt-uncle-grandfather once said," and my mind briefly paused as it tried to parse that and failed, "...the origin of the Labyrinthine Star was it tearing apart the world that created it, reusing everything but leaving nothing intact except the Lord Beneath and the original Sovereigns."

"So, you understand, it does not treat any other world more fairly than it treated its own creators." Herman shrugged and moved back towards where we'd been discussing with Kalamitus. "Death is death, and control over a soul, such as what the Fairy Queens do, or what your skill does, is nothing more than that--reusing most parts of a dead thing to create something new."

"Does that m--"

"No existential questions about dying and coming back to life, please," interrupted Herman. "Let's remain on topic."

I considered what he said and, reluctantly, nodded. "So... then, I guess, my only task is to defeat Bo... and then this Full Clear Quest."

Kalamitus started to swell with what I assumed was smugness or pride, as he seemed eager to get what he wanted, but a gesture from Herman cut him off, somehow forcing him silent again.

"Now, now, Jerry," chided the fairy gently. "Don't let yourself get distracted. This is a negotiation. Those are your goals, but you are here to determine what reward you received for undertaking a quest. Why, there are those who might interpret what you just said as needing no reward at all, as long as you complete your goals!" He floated close to me again, and I caught a sharp sense of smugness directed back at Kalamitus. "But a god has asked something of you, in particular. It will take less than your budget, I assure you, to accomplish those goals."

"So come along, and out with it. Surely you have other desires beyond your immediate needs? I am eager to do everything I can to help." Herman--the perpetually-disturbing spider fairy, Herman, who'd joyously amended my non-disclosure agreement to include the phrase 'flayed alive in hell for a thousand generations'--fluttered his wings briefly as he innocently and with absolute force prevented a Dungeon God from taking advantage of my moment of weakness.

I wanted to hug him, or perhaps throw up and pass out, but instead, took a deep breath, and tried to get my bearings.