Saga of the Soul Dungeon 3.13 - First Contact

Not sure why I decided the holidays were the time to try to post on a regular schedule. Not my brightest idea. I will grant you that. Nonetheless, here is a chapter. If a little delayed from when I would have liked to deliver it.

If, for example, tomorrow an expedition of Martians came to us here and one said ‘I want to be baptised!’, what would happen? Martians, right? Green, with long noses and big ears, like in children’s drawings? When the Lord shows us the way, who are we to say, ‘No, Lord, it is not prudent! No, let's do it this way’. Who are we to close doors?

-Pope Francis

They stared at each other, man and alien, or more correctly alien and alien—for this is what they were to each other. Alien meaning different, alien meaning unknown.

-Harry Harrison, Plague from Space

Caden hadn’t particularly wanted to talk to anyone naked. He wasn’t a nudist, and as much as he had enjoyed walking around his apartment in his underwear he still liked having some clothes on. However, he hadn’t yet figured out how to make clothes for his avatar.

However, figuring out how to communicate was one of his single most important goals, and having a body, as long as someone could actually see him, would help with that immensely. So, uncomfortable and embarrassing as it might be, he decided to meet his guests.

This form did have a few advantages. While he felt the sensations of hot, cold, and other sensations, they never actually felt uncomfortable. He could teleport around anywhere he wanted to be, and having solids, liquids, etc… pass through him seemed to be completely harmless. He had even tested his body with fire, heat stones, and anything else magical he could find. Nothing had harmed him or even caused him the slightest bit of pain. Plus… he just enjoyed walking around in a body again. The sensations were more sharp edged, less soft changes in pressure, and more the rough feeling of stone under his feet. He still hoped he would figure out more to do with this form, but it was already useful, and he wasn't going to complain about having another tool, especially when the only cost was being a little uncomfortable.

He had even taken the time to visit the surface. The landscape was snowy peaks all around with an equally snowy landscape stretching out beneath them in every direction. It was obvious that he was in the middle of a mountain range. Only one direction, to the east, carried a large valley with mountains encompassing it from the north and south.

And the sun still looked small with that faint red ring in the sky looking even closer to it than before. He hadn’t thought to look at the sky last night, he was busy fixing the interior, but he was looking forward to seeing it. The moon casting a pale white shadow over the snowy peaks, empty and undisturbed of humans.

Empty of most things, really. Even with the volcanic crust over portions of the landscape there was less living on this landscape then he expected. He had visited Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho once. Areas of this landscape reminded him of that, basaltic blasted landscapes of sharp twisted stone and loose pebbles of dark airy pumice. This landscape lacked even the colorful lichen that was gradually terraforming that place back into habitablity. Thickets and glades of some kind of gnarled trees covered much of the valley below, but the areas he had access to had very little life on the surface. He had discovered some plants on the surface, like the little cave plants that glittered in dim light, and a few others, but very few animals. Maybe he was just exceptionally high up, or far north or south to make it so cold.

He had run some tests. It was just in his nature. He remembered videos of people spitting and it freezing before it hit the ground. Or sending arcs of ice cascading to the ground after throwing a stream of water out of a bucket. It was at least that cold. Even in the lowest areas he had access to, right outside the his entrance to the north, any small amount of boiling water he made turned to ice before it hit the ground.

Regardless of all that, he had decided to meet the adventurers, if he could.

He couldn’t. At least not all of them. As they walked in only the Adar noticed him and stared at him. He was walking in last, so none of the others seemed to notice.

They had chosen one of the tests designed to be taken my all four individually in different rooms, so that was not a problem. He could just try and talk with the one who could see and hear him. Honestly it was probably easier this way.

There was no stone statue for this test, they were pretty self explanatory, and the doors would only let a single person enter, so that was not a worry. Eventually the group had divided up and each chose a door.

Caden followed the Adar and shifted the room around them as soon as they entered. The matching games, puzzles, and other designs shifted into the floor. He had a more important puzzle to solve.

Two chairs made of stone lifted up with a table between them.

Caden pointed at one of them.

Sit.

Then he sat himself.

In front of him a book with stone pages formed. He needed some way to take notes.

The Adar seemed hesitant, but he sat anyway.

It was time to begin.

Caden started with something very basic.

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Zidaun was not sure what to make of this method of communication. He had already resolved to solve the communication problem as best he could, but it looked like the dungeon had already decided to take matters into its own hands.

And it had hands… sort of. It seems to be using some kind of soul projection, he could feel a slight resonance within himself. The same kind of soul attunement that he had always felt with his prior dungeon and with his former ancient. A connection of purpose, of belonging. For it to take a human form was certainly not anything that he had ever imagined was even possible. No one else could see it either. If his duty to keep the dungeon’s interests in mind had not been paramount he would probably have cried out in surprise, but he found himself physically unable to when noticed the others could not see it at all. The dungeon might want this interaction hidden.

Sitting in surprisingly comfortable chair made of stone he watched as stone statues appeared. They were statues of his team, including himself. The dungeon pointed at each them and said a word for each of his teammates. Then a word he recognized when pointing at him. Adar.

He started a little bit. How did it know what his race was called? Had it had an experience with them in the past? It pointed at the statue of him again, saying Adar again. It pointed again at his three teammates, looking at him. Was it asking him? Well he supposed it was.

He pointed at them himself, his finger shaking slightly.

“Human.”

The dungeon nodded its head. It opened the stone book in front of it and Zidaun could see writing appearing in a different colored stone. It was recording the word that he had taught it. This was a small thing, but it said a great deal about the intelligence of the dungeon. It understood recording information  and interacting with humans well enough to take on a human soul form. It was somewhat disconcerting, but it was the most relatable dungeon he had ever heard of. He honestly had no idea what that meant for him.

The dungeon pointed at him again.

He wasn’t sure what it was asking.

Well it was pointing at him. His name? Probably. There were too many other options, his chest, skin, etc…

Well he would try to make it as clear as he could.

He tapped his own chest and then pointed at the statue of himself.

“Zidaun.”

He pointed at each of his teammates in turn saying their name.

Then the dungeon did something he did not expect. It pointed at its own chest and said a name.

Caden.

It had a name. Honestly none of the dungeons he knew had a name that was not given by others for convenience.

A model of a core appeared in from of him. It was not made of perfectly smooth panes of ebony stone like he had been expecting. It had stress lines and areas that looked like they had been sheared off. It was irregular. He had no idea what had happened to make it like this. It was obviously damaged. And it had obviously survived that damage. Had it been quietly recuperating here in these remote mountains for untold millennia? He knew there was a civilization that had lived in this area several thousand years ago. Was it a remnant from the cataclysm that had destroyed them? Or was is even older? It could have been sleeping here for tens of thousands of years for all he knew. Not too much longer than that, of course, if it knew of the Adar.

It pointed at itself again and then at the dungeon core. Caden.

Okay, so it was the dungeon then. Zidaun had been wondering slightly if it might have been something else. It didn’t seem likely with his soul connection to it. That should only happen with a dungeon.

Then the other voice spoke again, the other voice of the dungeon.

Exsan.

Caden pointed at the core again and repeated the word.

Exsan.

So there were two. And they were both the dungeon. Well he was talking to Caden for now, so… well he would deal with that when it became relevant.

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After introducing the concepts of the different names it was not much of a stretch for Caden to get the word for name. Probably. Admittedly it could be some other form of identifier that was part of the language.

Ugh. He was going to need to do this for an entire language. At least he was dealing with humanoids.

After that came numbers.

He used his own roman numerals in combination with slashes, different numbers of stones, etc… to learn the different numbers.

All the numbers were decimals, thank God. He even created sand in a box on top of the table so that Zidaun could write the symbols for the numbers in it. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work.

Interestingly the numbers were slightly different than Caden had expected. In English the one could reuse the numbers from the tens, hundreds, etc… when dealing with the thousands. Just say, ten thousand, etc… That was not the case with this language. Each order of magnitude had its own designation. It meant the language was harder to memorize. Zidaun also only knew the words up to the ten million magnitude. After that he just remained silent.

Well Caden didn’t know much about the society he came from, but not knowing anything higher than that was highly suggestive of a preindustrial society. Admittedly Caden had been pretty sure of that already, but it was confirmation. Of course, with magic, who knew exactly how society would form. Maybe magic let them mass produce food the way that the industrial revolution had. He didn’t know. Honestly there was so much he didn’t know.

Oh well. There was always more to learn and teach. Addition, subtraction, these things should let him show true and false statements, and from there it was understanding the basis of yes or no questions. One step at a time he would figure all of this out.