Many years ago.
"Lare?" he called and the small, so fragile, woman turned to face the silver wall he formed his avatar out of.
"Silver," she smiled and her expression was so warm in contrast to his dungeon. He reached out to touch her hand and she allowed him. She wandered his deepest floors safely on his command and she even adapted to his potent mana with ease.
Her ebony hair was like obsidian, her skin of alabaster, and her eyes the clearest blue. It was like she had been sculpted by something that knew what a human was only by the purest of ideals and she was all SIlver's.
"The town is growing restless," she said and Silver vaguely remembered the pests on the surface.
"Let them. Just stay here, become my contract," Silver insisted for
the thousandth time. Lare laughed with noise like clear bells.
"I can't" she rejected him a thousandth and one time. Silver frowned, not used to having to argue or even accept another's will in his own walls. But he would for Lare.
"Will you at least tell me why?" he begged, his form fluid like liquid mercury that shifted between a knight and a wolf.
She thought about it.
"I need to head east, to a far away land in the corner of this world. I just have to," she said and Silver mentally cursed at having no interest in the outside world.
"Tell what is there and I'll make it here. I'll... I'll even change the previous floor I have for you," he offered and his soul crawled at the mere idea of changing anything. Lare smiled and that little pointy canine she had was briefly shown, making Silver light up as Lare did her best to hide it from others, calling it 'crooked'.
Silver had never seen anything so crooked look so beautiful.
"It's not something you can give me. There's a funeral I need to attend," she explained gently and Silver took her every word and stored it as permanent memories inside his core.
"A funeral... that's to remember someone who died. Did someone die?" Silver asked slowly, trying to avoid sounding insensitive.
"Someone did and I'm hoping remembering them together with my family will keep them alive a little longer, in some way," Lare said with a far away look that made her look slightly ethereal to Silver's eyes.
"What was their name?" Silver pressed, feeling a little envious of this dead smuck.
"Oh I know that look... let's just call him... 'Bratislav'!" Lare laughed and ran off to one of Silver's grand dining halls where she enjoyed playing with the food made of pure silver.
Silver would find out sooner or later.
---
Present Day
Argus tried not to cover his nose as the man skittered about, smacking bugs with a massively worn down shoe.
"Thomas Darkblade! Adventurer extraordinaire! You may have heard about me due to my deeds at the Capitol where I was vital in assaulting the mad king with a massive cheese dragon or tearing down the gates with my monstrous strength or perhaps you might have even heard how I took a massive chunk out of the royal aegis shield with my teeth alone?" he bragged. The cockroaches were making off with his shoe as he talked.
"I'm pretty sure you're not the Big Cheese Haldi, The Demon Mila, nor Pic the Insatiable," Yattina said with a frown and the man lit up.
"Ah, my apprentices! You've heard of them!" he said with delight.
"You don't look older than thirty," Lim pointed out as a small trickle of water ran past in the sewer, looking oddly clean as if it wasn't being used by the town. Thomas Darkblade blinked then ran a hand through his black hair and Argus recoiled as what looked like a dozen spiders fled at his touch, revealing a shocking buzzcut of white hair.
"Your skin still has a healthy amount of youth," Yattina said, not disturbed at all by the scene as she examined the man with her eye.
"Ah, that's because we're on the 154th floor of a Dungeon and I found the 'Tap of Fabled Youth'," Thomas Darkblade said with excitement and pointed down the tunnel where there was indeed a set of stairs going down.
Argus got a strange 'feeling' when he saw those stairs.
"Lim, go down the stairs," Yattina asked and Lim frowned but did as she asked, climbing down the stairs, only to emerge back out of them as if he had come from the floor above.
Thomas Darkblade's nostrils flared then just as he looked ready to go red with strain, he suddenly exhaled and found peace.
"Oh, hello there! My name is the grand adventurer Thomas Darkblade, have you come to explore the Dungeon with me today?" the man asked slyly as if he just spotted the group.
"I might allow you to join me, despite the fact the experience will be divided four ways, but I can manage as long as I am party leader and get priority on assassin dagger. There's a set I've been looking for down here that gives me a whole +5 to cool," he explained as his eyes took on a sudden dark gleam.
"Sir, why don't you go out the other stairs?" Yattina asked with slow concern.
"AND LET THOSE FOUR WIN? I WILL HAVE THE LAST RAT AND MY DUE!" Thomas Darkblade thundered, the tunnel shaking with the force.
"But there is no last rat. It's just cockroaches and spiders down here," Argus tried to point out and the man twitched, an aura of wrongness taking over him like a dark grease stain as he tried to spit words out.
"I am... Thomas Darkblade...find...rat," he strained, spittle flying from his clenched teeth and Yattina suddenly stood in front of Argus and Lim.
"I heard skittering down that way," she said and the oppressive, horrible, familiar aura of the man receded as he took off with excitement.
"Tally Ho!" he cried.
"What was that?" Lim whispered, hands shaking. Yattina was about to say something when someone walked up from behind them with calm steps. Argus turned and he instinctively drew back as a polite looking man in a suit jacket and slicked back hair appeared.
He was menacing in a way that wasn't obvious with a selection of little containers around his waist.
Even worse, Argus knew him.
"Mr Japes," Argus muttered and the man smiled.
"Little Gentle. How the years have passed and affected us both so little," the potter said with delight.
"Can we help you?" Yattina asked and Japes paused as if taken back by her.
"What a wonderful woman. A splash of Dungeon power freely gained and with such inquisitive eyes. I could just bottle both of them for my collection," he praised and Yattina merely raised her brows.
"Do you practice in front of a mirror or were you born with the desire to be detestable on the first meeting?" she asked bluntly.
"I presume the latter since even my parents couldn't bear to be around me long after I was born," he admitted then shrugged.
"Blood, I find it the weakest link between those who are family," he said then looked around the sewer as if checking for something.
"Ah, good. You didn't press the prison too far," Japes said and at his touch, the bricks lit up to reveal a dazzling array of magical seals.
"This is a prison? We just walked in," Lim said, looking around.
"Mr Japes is really good at making... pots," Argus said tightly. Japes ignored them for a moment as he touched a few symbols and the sewer began to expand in different directions, the twists groaning as new tunnels opened and new details were added.
Yattina watched him and Argus could see she knew something that he and Lim hadn't noticed.
"How long has Durence been a prison for an Echo?" she asked and Argus shivered, the urge to cover his mouth rising up at the word.
"Thomas Darkblade is just an adventurer. It's best we refer to him as such. Too much challenge to that worldview can make him unpleasant, as you saw," Japes said with a sigh.
"He's a void in reality. I look upon him and under that thin shell of a person is a growing gnawing hunger," Yattina whispered.
"He's actually not that strong. Very annoying, but not strong. He was deliberately deprived of his chance to grow, but even in his short time of following us to the founding of this village, he had a catastrophic consequence upon the world," Japes explained as he closed the magic seal back into the brick.
"What's an Echo?" Lim asked and Argus listened, needing to know what the answer was from Japes.
"Oh I wouldn't dare break Fairplay's little knowledge rule on that subject. You could be tempted or drawn to them simply by knowing!" Japes let out a fake gasp of shock.
"Only knowing specific names and ideas," Yattina cut him off and she really didn't care for the potter. She turned to Argus and Lim, frowning.
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"It's not really my area of expertise, but Echos are, well, you can call them either 'anti-life' beings or 'Total life' beings. Both are technically true," she said as they watched Thomas Darkblade wander along a wall, throwing a rusty grappling hook on the ground and pretending to drag himself along it.
"Inside us all, exists proof of Other. We call it seeds, cores, and even 'darkness'. A thing that can grow and grant us power while dooming us closer to a terrible fate," Japes interject then looked around with a smile.
"Most life has this piece of them. A perfect piece that sustains the rest of us but this 'Other' can exist outside us, and it mostly does," Japes continued as he drew his finger across the space, bringing forth a translucent window like water suspended in the air.
"Imagine, if you can, that all over this world, under it, above it, inside it, there are oceans of Other and sometimes these oceans form storms of Other," he said and pulled the window down for Argus to peer through.
When Argus looked at Thomas Darkblade through this window, his human form was still there, but leaking out like slithering tendrils was something else deep inside his body. It looked like a fruit that had been painted mid-explosion, the inside forming an eye that did not see.
A heart that did not beat.
He pulled his gaze away, unsettled, but oddly... nostalgic.
"Enjoy lecturing?" Yattina asked as she stood in front of the window to prevent them seeing more as Lim was breathing far too heavy to be normal.
"Somewhat," Japes admitted with a smile.
"Echoes are great existences that are 'born' in numerous ways. The first is a simple gathering of 'Other' in the sea, enough until it shapes itself. These tend to be goliaths of a more bestial nature. Your great wyrms, monstrous slumbering giants, your unfathomable sea beasts. They can learn and even hide themselves given time," Japes said as he turned and headed to the exit.
"My pa once told me of the Great Wyrm that was shot down with a blinding white arrow and it fell into the ocean," Lim spoke up for the first time since seeing the true form of Thomas Darkblade.
"Yes, I did try to study it but the thing is under a great seal. Quite a sad affair," Japes sighed and Argus shivered at his disappointment of not getting to study such a thing.
"The Dark Drakes of the island were quite rude so I didn't stick around, but the second means of an Echo forming is human worship. We as a species can worship most anything so when we direct our thoughts into the void, we can shape more 'defined' Echoes with purpose and religious angles. A lot of cults begin this way," Japes said and he made it sound like a bunch of hobby clubs had started up.
"The fun thing about Echos is they can bounce off each other and merge. A lot of the fun events I've witnessed are lesser groups trying to find other Echos to feed to their icon. This is why you'll never see them truly working together! Echoes are just too juicy to each other," Japes giggled.
"It's like they want to gather together. The 'Lost Sibling' theorem is popular among theologians. People say that the Sister invited gods into the world to drown out the Echoes. The gods can protect them from the siren call of Echoes," Yattina said, sounding like Japes was talking about something boring.
Japes paused on the stairs back to the surface.
"Gods... talk about choosing to break your fingers rather than your whole foot," he snorted.
"You don't like gods, Mr Japes?" Argus asked, surprised since he thought Mr Japes would have liked to dissect one. Mr Japes turned back with an odd smile.
"We don't need gods. We... I have a superior option," he said without explaining further, he was about to climb out of the sewers when Lim called out.
"You said there were three ways!" he reminded the potter and Mr Japes nodded.
"The last way an Echo can be born is if someone amasses great power and hears the right thing, witnesses the correct scene, tastes the suitable food... the seed within them sprouts and they become True Life," he said with amusement.
"That has never been proven," Yattina interjected, shooting Lim a warm smile to calm him.
"Well, it would never be proven with Fairplay's penchant for mutilating their own seeds until they're more machine than not," Japes drawled with a sly look. He turned once more.
"Besides. I am living proof. I briefly turned into an Echo before I cut it out of my own chest and put it on my shelf for my collection," he said airly.
"You can just cut them out?" Argus asked, face sweating at the idea.
Mr Japes considered the question.
"Not really, but I made do," he admitted and was gone into the beautiful daylight. When he was gone, Lim turned to Yattina.
"What do you 'see' when you look at him?" he asked quietly.
"He's the opposite of an Echo. There's just too much on the outside and nothing on the inside," she replied and then looked down at the sewer with a shiver.
"I'll get this sealed up and work with the elders to prevent anyone going down," she sighed.
Argus nodded, but his mind was racing as he tried to figure something out.
"Tell me more of that Great Wyrm," he asked of Lim who looked surprised but pleased to be the center of attention. Argus put Thomas... Darkblade out of his mind.
He was becoming distinctly aware he couldn't just call the Echo Thomas... Darkblade. It was becoming very annoying. Thomas Darkblade could just stay down there because there were no rats for him to find.
Like Mr Japes said, Thomas Darkblade wasn't strong, just annoying.
---
Thomas Darkblade paused as a thin line of the deep sewer Dungeon was cracked at the edges, letting in fresh air. The crack was so small that he couldn't even get his hand in or out, but he didn't need to.
He pulled out some of his cheese, made by his feet, and placed it near the crack.
Thomas Darkblade would win.
He always won.
---
"This is a trap," the Gunsmith commented as they eyed the line of food and massive buffet table along a resting spot of an open fire below a massive mural of a woman and the Dungeon.
"I am hungry," the Alchemist admitted before dropping some of the meat into a test tube of solution that turned a soft blue.
"It is food, but I wouldn't even know what to test for," he reported.
"Are you poisonous?" The Necromancer asked a roast chicken which sat up on its boney drum legs.
It made a strong 'x' with its wings and flopped back down.
"At what level between dead and alive is there a line for you?" the Mage asked and the Necromancer smiled, moving a finger near the mage and coming away with a dusty glove finger.
"We're all rotting on some level. Some just do it quieter than others," he said and wiped the Mage's dead skin on his robes.
"Yeah, but there has to be a limit!" complained the Archer as he dug into a lemon tart.
"I don't animate toenails," came a response.
"Because they're not technically flesh?" the Warrior guessed.
"No, I don't like toenails," the Necromancer said as he made his way to the soups.
"I always wanted to ask this, but how did you even get into death magic?" the Gunsmith asked around some sort of pasta dish with juicy pork meatballs.
"When I was young, my pet fish died. I was so upset, it stopped being dead. That was a hint," the Necromancer smiled as he sipped his chicken noodle soup. The Mage was struggling to understand how the Necromancer could even touch soup after the library...
"Maybe it was just asleep?" the Warrior suggested as he dug into a salad with cherry tomatoes and dressing.
"It pulled itself out of the cat's mouth with some effort so no," the Necromancer added.
The Mage looked around and found he was not really drawn to anything. He didn't have a sweet tooth or a hankering for meat. He was about to give up when he spotted an unusual dish. It looked like little white grains and there was a dark bottle next to it with the letters 'Soy' on it.
The taste was bland and simple.
The sauce made it a little tangy.
It was perfect.
"Soy? I'm going to call you 'Soy Boy' now," the Alchemist said after seeing the bland meal. The Mage didn't mind.
He wondered if he could chop the core minerals and vitamins into this meal but keep the taste simple... some sort of super scholar meal.
All the benefits, but none of the time wasting.
Mash in some fish heads and egg yolks too...
The idea was coming together.