[Edited] Chapters 23 & 24

Been a tad busy with Thanksgiving and all. Got the chapter from yesterday done, but didn't have time to post after.  So... Thanksgiving double feature? 

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<23 - I Dream of Stats>

I have always considered myself a fairly decent swimmer. I was no fish or anything, but I had spent plenty of time as a kid at the public pool. It had been a while since then, but I was still fairly confident I could manage.

That said, there is a quite literal ocean of difference between screwing around at the concrete pond and what I was attempting. A swimming pool just… lacks those certain personality quirks that make swimming any real distance in the ocean a nightmare.

It was not long before I discovered that the oceanic currents had a great deal more to say about the direction I was headed than any effort on my part. Despite maintaining a constant forward momentum, I found that I was slowly drifting around the landmass like a bug circling a drain, to the point where the door hovering in the sky behind me was soon lost against its backdrop.

Worse, the larger the island loomed in my vision, the more the surf began to pick up, and I had to constantly fight just to keep my head above water. Before I had gotten even a quarter of the way there, I was on the verge of drowning from exhaustion, and unlike a pool, I could not simply wade over to the shallow end for a breather.

Eventually, I decided my only recourse was to break into my supply of Gems of Power. Jax and I had discovered that, at least while they were dissolving in your mouth, a Gem could act as an endurance potion in a pinch. And since the ocean had grabbed hold of my nipples with a vindictive gleam in its eye, it was now or never.

“Inventory,” I called while spitting a bit of the acrid water from my mouth. The flavor was a bit off from what I expected of the ocean—closer to that coating on sour candies than salt water.

Regardless, I did not have much in the way of personal storage—just the Coin pouch we had found during our previous Dungeon excursion—but it had served me well. The little leather sack was still fastened about my neck via the sole surviving article of clothing that delve had left us: the drawstring from Jax’s old pair of pants. I had to give the thing props. It was hanging in there like a champion.

When the HUD appeared above me, I quickly took note of my current stock. Besides the small collection of Coins and the one remaining pill, we still had quite a few Gems of various qualities. Most of them were of the First and Second Ranks, but I did have two from the Third—both from what I would have labeled boss fights.

However, what I was looking for were the Minor Rank II’s we had received from the spider-beetles. Now that I was in the first Stratum, the Rank I’s were all but useless to me. I had eaten dozens of them since passing the Boundary, and I had yet to receive any kind of notice about a Layer-up. More importantly, they now lacked that critical endurance-sustaining quality I was looking for. I had been holding off on them until the lilim had caught up with me, but with drowning on the table, I had a niggling hunch they would forgive me.

One of the tiny Gems firmly wedged and dissolving under my tongue, I set out once more, fighting the waves and currents to inch my way along ever closer to the sandy beach growing on the horizon. It seemed to take ages, yet I persevered. I swam as far as I was able, rested on my back while the surf was calm enough to let me, and when the going got to be too much, I would tuck another Gem into my cheek and push through.

By the time my feet finally dug into the sand along the shoreline I had consumed seven of the dully glowing Gems. The number surprised me somewhat. I had thought for sure that the multitude of Rank I’s I had consumed in bolstering my Dolilim’s Layers would have counted for more—us splitting the gains and all. But apparently not.

Nevertheless, as I dragged my way out of the water and collapsed, a most welcome message appeared before my eyes.

I smiled weakly at the familiar notice, but then it gave a strange sort of flutter and vanished without my dismissing it.

“Bline?” I called feebly, too wiped to manage much more. I knew, now that I was safely ashore, I would not be able to fight off sleep much longer. It had been a very… very long day. “I’d like to distribute my stats, please.”

She did not respond. No attribute page nor any other prompts appeared. With the Layer-up notice, I had hoped the two of us might have returned to an uneasy working relationship, but it seemed not.

But that strange flicker…I shook my head, remembering the state She had been in when She had dismissed me. That scream. I had thought it was because I had offended her. Something about my odor. Perhaps even the lingering scent of Her sister upon me? But now, for the first time, I was forced to consider the idea that there might be something genuinely wrong. But how could that be?

How could I do…anything to a goddess?

It was a wild notion, yet before I could really consider the matter, I received a second notice. And this one was considerably less familiar.

“Um… what?”

Scarcely had the word left my mouth before a wave of dizziness overcame me, and I dropped unconscious.

*****

Abruptly, the television faded to black.

For several minutes, I simply sat there, staring at it. Uncomprehending. But then eventually, I had to blink.

When I did, I refocused on the broken coffee table just in front of my knees, and then my gaze began to wander. To my right was a recliner. Behind it, a freestanding artisan’s desk. Then, just to its right, there was a mostly empty bookshelf—all of which would have clashed like a set from ‘In Living Color’ were it not for the wallpaper. Somehow that managed not to fit even with that aesthetic.

I had to take a moment to rub at my eyes. My head felt… fuzzy. Cut adrift. But eventually I realized I was back in that room. Bline’s room. Or I guess… She had said it was a construct in my own mind, had she not? So that would sort of make it… my room? But why was I here? And where was She? And why did I feel so… off?

Whatever the answers to those questions, the place looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Wood chips, bits of ripped fabric, and crumpled piles of blue paper were strewn all over—all to be expected given the events immediately preceding my recent departure from this place. Yet somehow the furniture remained unmoved. Damaged, yes. But unmoved.

“Well… now what?” I murmured. My voice echoed strangely, distorting it so as to be otherworldly and unrecognizable.

Eventually, I decided to look around. Whatever this place’s true nature, it might do me some good to try understanding it. Bline had mentioned having some difficulties, so it was possible I might be able to help Her—however unlikely that might be.

The first thing to draw my attention was the artisan’s desk. I had the vague impression there was something missing from it, but for the life of me, I could not tell you what that might have been. In any case, there was a new and undamaged sheet of paper there, and from the look of it, the beginnings of my stat sheet had been sketched out. However, most of the important details had yet to be included.

For a moment, I had the passing thought to fill in some ridiculous numbers for my attributes. All the writing materials were right there. It would be easy.

Then I realized I was being silly. Just because I wrote something, that did not mean anything would happen. This was just a representation of something within my Core, and intuitively, I knew whatever numbers were written here could only reflect it and not the other way around. The interface the Lady provided only served as a means for me to give instructions for its advancement, so all I would end up accomplishing would be defacing Her work.

Hmm… so if that’s true, where does She get that information from?

It was an interesting question. And since I was poking about within my own mind, there was a fair chance I could find out. I had not been given the opportunity to distribute my stat points before being forced into torpor, after all. Maybe I could do that from the inside.

Curious now, I glanced over at the bookshelf in the passing hope there might be some sort of instruction manual. I had my doubts, though. Bline had said my mind construct was non-standard—unsurprising now that I thought about it, given my extraterrestrial origins.  If I had been in Her shoes, becoming increasingly frustrated with mounting errors in this bizarre alien’s brain, a manual would have been the first thing I would have looked for. But it was possible She had at least been taking notes.

However, when I looked over the titles, I quickly realized what these books were. Each represented a Word. There were nine on the top shelf: Labia, Silver, Generation, Dirt, Cynic, Palace, Floridness, Moisture, and of course, Toilet. Then, on the second, there were the slightly more useful ones: Lift and Conceal.

Hmm… divided into Nouns and Verbs, huh?

It was a decent enough way of organizing things for the time being. With as few as I had, there was not much point in further categorizing them alphabetically or into subjects. But why would each Word need an entire book?

There was only one way of answering that question. And for some reason, Moisture was calling to me. Maybe it was my recent swimming exercise, but I had the strange notion that if I could just understand the Word a bit better, I might be able to flex some measure of control over the element. I had no idea how, but… well, the book was there. I might as well.

Unfortunately, when I cracked it open, instead of offering any kind of advice on how to use or even speak the Word aloud, the book seemed filled, not with the visual static that so often accompanied unfamiliar Words, but with a bunch of alien symbols. I knuckled my forehead, dumbfounded as I turned page after page, but it was all the same. Even with my lexicon of languages, the contents of the book were a complete mystery. None of the symbols were even remotely familiar. It was not a matter of not having the correct Words to line up with them, either. It was like the language… did not exist. Yet it did. I was looking right at it.

Frustrated, I skipped back to the front, hoping for a table of contents or any sort of explanation. I got one. Sort of. The first page simply read:

Herein lies the essence of Moisture. Noun-class. Qualitative.

The next page was gobbledygook. As was the next. And the next. That being a bust, I thumbed to the back, idly scanning the pages along the way in the vague hope of seeing something recognizable—like a graph… or an illustration. However, when I got to the final page, it simply contained the word:

Complete.

I sighed. How spectacularly helpful.

After staring a while longer, I eventually got the bizarre impression this was all some sort of… math? I could have been wrong… and probably was. There was just something to do with the layout and spacing of it all. Each collection of symbols stood alone—important in and of themselves—instead of flowing in a continuous scrawl. Then, there were certain of the symbols which featured prominently, much larger and bolder than the others, and this would repeat each time those particular symbols were used. Still others, much smaller and seemingly less important, seemed to wrap phrases together.

I could only shake my head. I mean, I had taken some calculus back in the day, but I was in no way prepared to tackle something like this. I would have needed PhD’s in philology and linguistics to even begin.

If the Lady of Power ever showed back up, I would have to figure out how to ask about this stuff—or not ask, as it were. Otherwise there would be no hope of getting an answer. Even then, I doubted She would bother. I had gotten the distinct impression She regarded most people as little better than pestering children.

Then again, I had certainly never heard of anyone relating Words to math equations, so She might find the insight refreshing. Or laugh at me. Both of which were better than the silent treatment I had been getting.

Feeling somewhat dejected, I returned the book to where I had found it, but then I paused as I traced my finger over the spine. Something was… weird. Not as it should be.

The lights gave a bit of a flicker as if impatient, and I nodded. I had dallied long enough. I could be jettisoned from this place just as easily as I had entered. Whatever opportunity had been afforded me by showing up here, I had best make use of it.

Turning, I regarded the rest of the destroyed room.

Okay… so how do we go about distributing those points?

The moment that thought crossed my mind, my eyes fell on a door in back of the couch, and I could not help but furrow my brow in confusion, relatively confident there had been nothing but a blank wall there before.

Nothing ventured, I guess.

But when I started forward to circle the couch, I swayed unnaturally and had to catch myself before I fell. For a moment, I had to fight off dizziness. The feeling was wholly alien—like I had briefly become unstuck from reality. As if I was… somehow puppeteering my own body.

The lights flickered again, and the feeling passed. Whatever was going on, I was again gripped by a sense of urgency. I had best hurry.

The door led to a concrete stairwell—like you might find in a hotel or a parking lot—leading down, and giving the matter no more thought, I quickly began to descend. As strange as I was feeling, I could not be bothered with trivial details. The place was already strange and unnatural. What was one more oddity?

At first, I clutched at the handrail with exaggerated caution. I did not want another wave of dizziness to catch me unaware. However, after a few stories, I began feeling more assured. Almost light on my feet. And before long, I was taking the stairs two at a time, anxious to be done with.

Finally, I arrived at the last flight and saw a door, so I leapt down almost like a child at play. I landed heavily and felt a sudden and very odd pain in my chest, as if I had just experienced a minor heart attack. That brought me back to earth—both physically and mentally—and I had to shake my head.

Why did I do that? What was—

The lights blinked.

Past the door was a circular room. There was almost nothing in it save a series of still other doors, and all of it was painted in a basic sort of eggshell white. If the lighting had been a bit brighter, it could have worked perfectly for one of those mind fuckery types of sci-fi movies. I half expected some elderly gentleman to suddenly appear while snidely explaining his master plan through some easily digestible metaphor.

It would have been nice, come to think of it. I could have used a bit of exposition. All I had to go off of was a conveniently placed strip of carpet leading directly to the door on my immediate right.

I shrugged. Good enough.

That door led to yet another room, though this one was markedly different in both style and presentation to anything I had seen in here so far. It looked like the control room to some sort of… submarine? If it were designed by Jules Verne. So the Nautilus, I guess is what I am saying.

Directly in front of me, there were a series of six, naked cathode-ray monitors mounted to the wall in a horizontal line, and all limited to sepia-tones. The rest of the room was nearly strangled with elaborate copper pipes and tubes that wound about, leading off everywhere and nowhere, with various knobs and dials installed in seemingly random positions.

The only thing that was out of place was some kind of organic… mass that was growing up and over certain of the pipes off to the right. The moment I laid eyes on it, I unconsciously hissed and flinched back.

That doesn’t belong there!

Abruptly, I straightened and wiped my hands over my hips in embarrassment. That had been… a little out of character. I did not hiss. And how would I know what belonged?

The lights flickered three times in rapid succession.

I glanced up at the hanging fixture. Hmm… might have an electrical problem. Then I looked back at the… thing.

Uh huh.

It was… more than a little disgusting. It had that whole pulsating-membrane vibe going on that was so prevalent in horror movies—the kind of thing that made a person want to step back and go, ‘yeah… nah, man. I’m out.’ But short of killing it with fire, there was not much I could do about it. Also, I had a depressing lack of fire.

But I still had to figure out how to use this room, so I sidled over to the far left monitor. It was only coincidence that it happened to be the one furthest from… whatever that stuff was.

The display was fixed on a static image of the human muscular system with various blinking indicators labeling the different areas. I was unfamiliar with whatever language was being used in the display, but not in the same way as the Word-books. I knew these characters if not their meaning, but the intent was clear enough. This had to be my Strength attribute. Though how I was supposed to interact with it was a mystery.

None of the knobs seemed to do anything, no matter how much I fiddled with them. And whatever it was the dials were monitoring, I could not see any correlation on-screen with any of my actions. However, to one side, I did notice what looked to be the receiving end of a vacuum tube.

I did not want to touch it though. A tendril of that goop had grown over it. And the air trying to escape down the pipe kept making little farting noises.

My lip curled in disgust.

Dismissing that station for now, I moved over to the next. This one was mercifully clear of the organic substance—including the vacuum tube to one side of it. Meanwhile, the monitor was again displaying the human body, but this time, the focus seemed to be on some sort of intricate filaments extending throughout. Initially, I assumed it was the cardiovascular system, but I quickly dismissed that idea. The spinal cord featured too prominently to be anything but the nervous system.

So is this Agility, then?

That made some sense. Agility was the ability to accurately control one’s own body, so strengthening the nervous system would be the way to go about that. There had to be more to it than that, though. I mean, if you just unilaterally ‘improved’ your nervous system, would your sense of touch not eventually start going haywire?

Although, it was an intriguing notion. Maybe pumping Agility would result in some passive bonuses to your senses… or even intensify my love-making sessions with the girls! I would need to look into it.

Intrigued now, I took a closer look, however I quickly noted some kind of blinking message on screen, trying to draw my attention to the ears. It was difficult to tell—not being able to read the language and all—but it had all the hallmarks of an error message.

Huh… bet I got some water in there. I made a mental note to clean them out later. I did not want swimmer’s ear.

Given the layout I had seen thus far, the rest seemed pretty straightforward. These were representations of my stats. Each of the monitors portrayed various parts of my body in more or less detail. The first three were my physicals in the same order from left to right as my stat page presented them top to bottom, while the latter had to be the mentals. I assumed the pattern would remain consistent—my brain featured prominently from what I could see of their monitors—but the big, pulsating mass was growing most thickly over those. So I did not want to get too close.

Okay? So… now what?

There had to be some way of distributing my stats.

A moment later, I heard a bit of thunk followed by a soft click, and I turned. Over by the door, there were four receptacles for the vacuum tubes, and something had just arrived in the one furthest left. Then, before I could blink, another three arrived in rapid succession.

When I went to investigate, I found four capsules waiting in their slots. Each contained a single, thin quartz crystal, perhaps two fingers in length and about as wide around as my pinkie.

Huh… I guess these are my attribute points, then? It made sense. I normally had four to spend, and it went along with the pneumatic tubes positioned next to each of my stat monitors. The crystals were thin enough to fit them perfectly. Although, now that I was comparing them, not every monitor had exactly the same setup.

Strength and Agility both had a single tube, but the rest all had two—except for the one on the far right. I assumed it represented Charisma, but it was so completely covered by that gunk, it was impossible to see what was under it. Even so, things were becoming ever more clear. With the exception of Toughness, my physicals were my weakest stats, and so far, they only required the one stat point per upgrade. The rest required two.

Okay, then. So what am I going to invest in?

Normally, my go-to was Charisma. It was supposed to be important for my skills as a summoner, and when I had gotten it to 10, I had received a message indicating it might have something to do with improving my abilities with Words—something about them becoming more convincing. Whatever that meant. I had yet to see any stirrings on that front.

However, even once I worked up the nerve to poke at the living mass covering the tube… with the sharp end of the quartz—there was no way I was touching that crap with my fingers—the skin of it could have been hard boot-leather. I might have been able to force the crystal through with a mallet or something, but quite honestly, I did not want to find out how it might react if I tried.

My other main stat was currently Wisdom. Besides helping me think more clearly, it had the added side-benefit of improving my resistance to mental Status Effects, and since I frequently cursed myself with debilitating Lust, that was becoming increasingly important.

Unfortunately, that set of tubes was also covered with flesh, but here at least, there seemed to be a bit of an opening to let the air through. In fact, it almost looked like a bizarre set of lips. Very moist… pulsating lips.

Faintly disgusted, I began prodding at them with the tip of a crystal, coaxing them to part just enough to let me insert the thing.

“Mmm~”

I paused, listening. Where did that sound come from?

Whatever it had been, it had stopped. However, when I looked back, it seemed that the lips had given way just enough for me to see the pair of tubes they were covering.

Though, they had started emitting some sort of… slime. And the tubes kept sucking at it… making popping noises. I felt my gorge rising, so I quickly averted my eyes. I was not sure what would happen if I were to lose my lunch inside my own Core, and I certainly did not want to find out.

Suppressing a shiver, I slipped the first crystal into its slot, but it stopped about halfway in. It was not stuck though. I could easily wiggle it around or pull it back out again. There seemed to be some sort of blockage. Experimentally, I tried the other tube, but the same thing happened.

Someone audibly gasped, and I spun. But there was no one there.

“Okay… that’s it. I’m calling shenanigans,” I said aloud. My voice sounded tinny inside the mostly-copper chamber. “Where’s my broom?”

No one replied. Or laughed. Not that I expected them to. Actually, it would have been more weird if they had. Who around here would have been familiar with South Park?

I turned back with a suspicious frown. The pair of crystals were sitting there just as I had left them, although the lips seemed to be sucking at them like a particularly delicious Twin Pop. I was half tempted to try pulling them out again just to get them away from that mess, but there was the risk of getting some of it on me.

So that was out.

Okay, so what’s causing the blockage.

I did not really know what I was dealing with here, so I decided to check out one of the other tubes—without living slime all over it. It was difficult to see anything within the little opening, but I could just faintly make out a thin metal rod. And when I glanced to one side, there seemed to be some sort of mechanism attached to the pipe at about the same spot.

Slowly, I traced the various copper tubes and shafts along to the far left-hand side of the room where I found an exaggerated pull-lever. It even had a helpful little label etched into a plaque on the floor.

Finalize? I pursed my lips in thought. Oh, okay. Slot the crystals, then pull the lever to finalize my choice. I nodded. Got it.

With only the two crystals left, I was sorely tempted to put them into Strength and Agility, given their reduced costs, but it was difficult for me to justify the picks. Besides the occasional banister-scaling incidents, I did not have much need for increased physicality.

That just left Intelligence and Toughness. And while I could certainly use a touch more in the way of smarts, I could not see any clear mechanical benefit for the choice. Meanwhile, pumping Toughness would directly increase my Life Energy pool which served as both mana reservoir and counter to the trap hell I was currently stuck within.

Well, that’s a no-brainer. I stepped toward Toughness before pausing. Damn… what’s with all the puns, lately?

Yet again, the twin pipes were almost covered with that organic mass. There was even an identical set of fleshy lips growing over the entrance.

Man… I really need to figure out how to clean this shit out of here. This is disgusting. But for the time being, I would have to deal with it. And not wanting to think about it anymore, I simply shoved the pair of crystals through the opening.

“Mmyeah~”

The sound sent a shiver running up my spine, coinciding with the sudden realization of how uniquely… sexual it had been. How sexual all of the noises had been. Yet there was only one place it could have been coming from. Unwilling, I glanced over at the pulsating mass. It was sitting there just the same as always. Though it might have looked a tad… excited?

For a moment, I allowed my eyes to unfocus, just staring off into the middle distance. Then, I walked over to the lever. From the way things were going, I had an inkling as to what would happen when I pulled it. And that was about the last thing I wanted to see.

Fuck it.

Without looking, I steeled myself for the inevitable and yanked the lever back. There was a thunk, and the crystals were away… followed shortly by the entire organic mass tensing up, shivering for several seconds while phosphorescent lights rippled over its skin, then letting out the girliest little squeal I had ever heard. After that, it began violently convulsing around and into the tube it was most thickly growing over—from the ordering, what had to be the Charisma tube.

I stared in morbid fascination through the whole thing, simultaneously appalled and alarmed. I mean… whatever strange, metaphorical dreamland this happened to be, that tube was connected to me. Right? I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to be feeling some sort of effect from this for better or worse.

I also had a pretty good idea of who was responsible.

But I had seen enough. I was ready to get out of here, so I turned to leave.

However, when I approached the door, I noticed a small glass porthole at about eye-level, and I happened to catch a bit of my own reflection there. Except it was not. It was… wrong.

The lights began to flicker again, more violently. They were… they were trying to distract me. From this. What was this?

Hesitant, I reached forward, trying to make sense of the apparition, to figure out just who or what I was looking at, but then I felt an abrupt and sharp pain in my hand. With a gasp, I clutched it to my chest. But that felt wrong, too. It was… too soft. There was too much of it. Great twin mounds that most definitely should not have been there.

My hand twisted and cracked, and I gritted my teeth, helpless to do anything but watch as my fingernails began to grow and sharpen upon fingers far too narrow and delicate to have ever belonged to a man.

Then the pain traveled up my neck, into my jaw. As before, I could feel certain of my teeth begin to push out, almost twisting in my skull as they lengthened into fangs.

With a final pop, they settled, and I looked up into the glass. And then our eyes met.

That was Bline’s face, I realized. Had been her face. The entire time.

Her lips moved. My lips.

“Donum?”

Suddenly, the pain slammed into me again—far, far stronger than before—like the top of my head was about to burst open.

And I woke up.

<24 - Meetings>

I jerked upright and frantically began looking myself over—then sighed in relief. I had the same long but thick fingers, my nails were wide and mercifully flat, my arms were hairy as ever, and my chest remained lean and unpadded. And when I ran a hand over my cheeks, I found the same beard as when I had fallen asleep. Then, with a degree of hesitation, I checked down under, but that seemed…

I paused to lift my kilt up for a closer look, and my lips pursed in consideration. I was currently flaccid, so it was difficult to tell whether there was any real difference. But I was definitely hanging a bit lower than normal. Then again, the morning sun on this lonely little stretch of beach was comfortably warm.

I gave my head a quick shake. That’s not important right now!

The move brought a swishing sensation in my ear to notice and, on instinct, I began thumping the heel of my hand just behind it to release the water. For an instant, I had the brief recollection of seeing an error message to that effect, and my eyebrows knitted together.

That… couldn’t have been real? Could it?

I had never been one to take dreams all that seriously. I mean… they were just dreams. They had no bearing on the real world beyond reflecting your stress level or general state of mind. Still, that had been one of the strangest I had ever had—particularly toward the end. And it was so lucid! I had felt aware and more-or-less in control of myself through the whole of it.

Why had Bline been in my reflection? Was I Her? Or was She me? Why had I started growing claws? I had felt that pain. Very clearly. I had been changing. And rapidly. With a thoughtful expression, I ran my tongue over my teeth. Same as always.

Calmer now, I decided to dismiss it. I was being silly. Lucid or not, it was still just a dream. I was fine.

Well now, wait a minute. I was in torpor, wasn’t I? I nodded. There had been some message about a… personality quarantine? Then, before I could distribute my stats, I had been forced under.

With the possible exception of that Boundary trial fiasco, I had never had a dream during torpor that I could remember. I mean, I never remembered much of my dreams per se, but I was at least aware of having them. There had been many times I had awakened with the memory of some oddity or other fading into the background of my subconscious. But never after torpor.

No, torpor was quite different. It was like being… switched off. Dead. Neither conscious nor subconscious. And when I woke from it, it was always a sudden thing. I had never felt groggy nor in any way tired afterward. But this time?

I sucked in a breath and slowly let it out again. I needed to talk to Bline. Or barring that, at least look over my stats. If there was any substance to that dream at all, the changes I had prompted during it would be reflected there.

But if I were honest… I would have preferred it a product of an overactive imagination. Whatever that living membrane had represented, I doubted it could be good.

“Lady Bline,” I called, hoping She might have reconsidered the whole silent-treatment routine, “I would very much like to look at my stat page. Please?”

A moment later, there was the customary chime followed shortly by a thump and the sound of a bell rolling along the ground. Then a tiny little voice sounded in my ear.

“Damn it all! How am I supposed to walk with—ugh!” There were some scrabbling sounds, and I distinctly heard some paper rustling. Then a loud rip. “Of course. Of all the infernal… Uh… just a second, Donum!”

A few seconds of silence followed, then I heard what had to be a length of tape pulling off a roll and some smoothing sounds.

“Ok… shoot! Where did that bloody—Ah, here we go.”

<Ding!>

I sat completely nonplussed for about a minute—not the least of which because my stat sheet looked like it had been folded up, crumpled, and taped back together but because I could distinctly see a delicate pair of clawed hands holding it up along the edges. Moreover, when I actually began looking it over, it was clear the page had changed a lotsince the last time I had looked at it.

First off, I noticed ‘Claimed by Ahnbe’ had been added to my signs, and while that was not surprising given all that had happened with the Shepherdess, it did bear some consideration. Why was it a sign? Was that like a title? Some kind of… achievement I had unlocked? And if so, what did Marked by the Watcher mean? It had always been there, so I had not given it too much thought. But if it was in the same category as Ahnbe’s mess…

Surely the Watcher didn’t…? Not with me! I mean… He’s a guy! Right? I resisted the urge to gag. Besides, I was being silly. There were lots of things that could have meant. And the important thing was the potential mechanical effect the sign was having on me.

Speaking of…

My stats were looking suspiciously off. I knew for a fact my Toughness had been at 10, and I was fairly certain I had left my Wisdom sitting at 13. So for them to have both improved by the one point was in line with the dream. But I distinctly recalled that my Charisma had been one lower than Wisdom. For it to be 14 now would mean it had improved by two whole points… without my having chosen to increase it!

How in the hell…?

That should not have been possible. For one, I had never been able to improve a stat by more than one point per Layer. For another, since all of those stats were over 10, they each cost two points per increase. I had just gained the equivalent of eight stat points worth of attributes. Two Layer’s worth!

More, for some strange reason, Charisma itself was currently marked in bold. And now that I noticed the detail, I could see that Strength, Toughness, and Wisdom all had a bit of a mark underneath them. What is that supposed to mean?

As I sat pondering, I could not help but recall that horrific thing growing over the consoles in my mind… dimension? The main body of it had been around Charisma, though there had also been significant outgrowths over those three stats. And coincidentally—or perhaps rather the opposite of that—those were the same stats Ahnbe had indicated I should work on.

It had been a while—my memory was far from perfect—but I could still recall the pop-up which had spawned just before She had dismissed me. In short:

To satisfy Her, I needed Strength.

To withstand Her, I needed Toughness.

To see Her, I needed Wisdom.

And in return…

Let me see. How did it go? Something like… my flesh would be sculpted to please Her?

That sounded pretty close. And it was enough to cobble together a working theory as to what was going on. I could have been wrong—I would need to experiment a little—but my hunch was that as long as I invested into one of those three stats, I would also gain a point in Charisma. Which was nuts!

I was about to start fooling around with my latest batch of stat points—you always received new ones after torpor which would not be applied until after you achieved your next—when I noticed something else. Both Manic Force and Breadth had gone through the roof!

“What the fuck, Bline?” I exclaimed. “How by the starry Eye did my Manic stats shoot up ten whole points overnight?”

“Go fuck yourself, that’s how!” she yelled back. Then the clawed digits I had been seeing pulled the stat sheet down slightly, and a pair of familiar eyes shot me an apologetic look. And as my own slowly widened, she pulled it further down, allowing me to see the rest of her.

Never mind that I was now seeing and hearing the Lady of Power while reviewing my stat sheet… some rather extreme changes had occurred since the last I had seen her. First off, her eyes had gained a tinge of red along the outside edges of her irises. And not only her eyes, her hair, once a simple, wavy brunette, had also begun blending into red along the tips. It was as if it had been bundled up and lightly dipped into a vat of red ink—but a much darker shade than Jax’s.

Beyond that, I could not help but notice the little pair of narrow and somewhat spindly-looking horns poking out of her hair. And like her hair, they were a brownish black, except there was a strange bark-like texture to them. Then, of course, her ears were now poking out sharply from the sides of her head. I do not know what they had looked like before, but they had to have been small enough to escape my attention. Not so any longer.

Oddly enough, I could not see any of her lower body. However this worked, there was some sort of limitation on the viewing window. She was mostly transparent, after all.

She cleared her throat.

“Sorry. For swearing at you, I mean. Questions, you know. And uh… we may have… sort of… forgotten about updating those particular stats. Briefly.” She grimaced. “Also, not Bline. Not anymore.”

I sat back. As usual, I only had about a thousand questions I needed to ask all at once. “Uhm… consider me confused.”

She nodded in understanding. “Noted.” Then she pulled the sheet back up to cover her face again. Though, her claw drifted down and tapped at yet another detail I had missed. Right under the bit indicating my lilim slots, there was a new entry.

Faen: 1

My jaw dropped open on seeing that, and I had to give my head a vigorous shake.

“Bline… not Bline… whoever you are! I need to know what is going on.”

“No, you don’t,” she retorted quickly from behind the stat screen. “You merely wish to know. Whether I explain or not, you have no means of changing what has already come to pass.”

“Fine,” I replied through my gritted teeth. It was already difficult enough to dance around the prohibition on questions without also dealing with her mile-wide pedantic streak. “Please explain. If you are not Bline anymore, then I have some… concerns about what that might imply.”

“Really?” she returned, poking her head up again. She was sporting a mischievous look… and given what little I had seen of her thus far, that seemed massively out of character. “What concerns?”

“Well, let’s count them off, shall we? And do please consider these rhetorical, since you’re so sensitive to actual questions,” I began. “I think it’s a little worrying that the Lady of Power’s name has abruptly changed for no apparent reason. Does that mean She doesn’t exist anymore? What the shit is that going to mean for the world? Would it even still function? And yet here you are. With claws and horns. And sharp teeth. Don’t think I didn’t notice those! How is that possible? And what the ever-loving fuck do you mean, you forgot to update my Manic stats?”

She began to grin. “Mostly good questions. However.” She tapped that word again. Faen.

I frowned. “You’re saying… you’re a Faen?”

She did not reply save to nod. She had an expectant look on her face—like she wanted me to puzzle something out.

“Goddesses are Faen…s?” Do you add an ‘s’ for the plural? No, that doesn’t sound right.

She scowled at me.

“Bad question. Okay,” I murmured. “So, then Goddesses can… become Faen?”

She gasped in surprise, then gave an excited little hop. “Oh, you’re so close!”

Uhm…Whatever I was supposed to get from that, it was clear she was a Faen now. “Well, then I guess… uh… if you’re not Bline… anymore?”

She nodded expectantly.

Encouraged, I continued, “Then I don’t know what to call you.”

“Oh! Hold on, I was prepared for this part,” she exclaimed, then hastily began folding up my stat sheet again. A moment later, she held up a new sign—this one mercifully undamaged.

I blinked in utter confusion. Crap on a stick! Even her handwriting is different! “I’ve… spawned you? What in the—“

“Never mind that part,” she interrupted, then began tapping at the last sentence.

I opened my mouth… then closed it. And sighed. “Why you insist on referring to people as it is beyond me, but… fine. Uh. I don’t know. What do you want to be called?”

“Cram it up your ass, cunt!” she yelled. Then she slapped a hand over her mouth and blushed scarlet. After a moment, she delicately cleared her throat. “Apologies… my curse seems to have… mutated. A bit. What I… meant to say was that’s for you to decide.”

I did not reply immediately. I had been struck by an unfamiliar emotion, so I could not immediately put words to it. But it was similar to that feeling you get when you see a kitten tackling a ball of yarn. Which was weird. I mean, a person does not usually come off as ‘cute’ while swearing a blue-streak. Must be hanging out with Jax too much.

I clicked my tongue. “Right. Well, let’s see then… I guess you should start with the naming conventions just to avoid my having to guess at them.”

She turned her head to one side and, with an aloof sort of expression, began inspecting her claws. “I would imagine them quite similar to the ones you have already been apprised of.”

There was a beat of silence, then she flicked her eyes to my own. And rather deliberately, she began running her tongue over her fangs. It was… kind of sexy, actually. Whether she had meant it that way or not.

I shook my head to dispel the thought. I had no idea why, but she was sending me very clear non-verbal hints. But given the features she was drawing my attention to, I had a pretty good idea as to what she was getting at. After all, what other naming conventions had I been ‘apprised of?’

“Okay, so the same as my Dolilim, then. You could have just said that,” I complained.

She expelled a long-suffering sigh before turning to me fully. “Tell me this, alien.” She paused to smirk at me. “Oh, yes. We—or I suppose I should say ‘She’ now. Anyway, you were certainly heard despite the state you left us… Her in, and I am still working through the implications. But never mind. Do the goddesses of your world have a habit of explaining themselves to mortals?”

I frowned. That slip—if it had been one—had actually revealed quite a lot. Bline… probably still existed. But separate to the individual in front of me, despite them sharing a face.

Of course, that this entity shared Bline’s face was not particularly surprising. I had witnessed Her self-copying abilities firsthand. Several thousand times over.

Which, now that I thought on it, answered one of my long standing questions. I had been operating under the assumption that the Lady had been using Faen—as I understood it, a generic term for a servant of a goddess—to tend the needs of the populace but, with Bline’s ability to split away copies of herself, She would have had no need for Faen.

But now that She had—spawned one? Created one? Whatever—it made a kind of sense for the Lady to have used Her own face as the template. So then, why had this one grown lilim-like features? All of the other copies had looked exactly like the original… if lesser. Something about this was different in some as-yet-undefined way.

Although, if I were to take into account the whole ‘personality quarantine’ thing, that might help explain it. Going from the wording, this entity could very well have been some aspect of Bline that had been forcibly cut away then discarded. Like a cancer. And if goddesses could become Faen—or something in that ballpark—then I could assume that act had given birth to the entity before me.

Somehow.

So why is she suddenly my problem? I had no answer to that, nor could I logic my way to an answer. Not yet, anyway. I needed more information. It might explain the horns, though. Something about my Class might have caused the change once she was attached.

In any case, I had been posed a question: Goddesses explaining themselves, huh?

There were a lot of ways to interpret that depending on one’s cultural background. However, if a person was at all honest with oneself, the answer arrived at would always end up the same.

“No,” I admitted. “As far as I’m aware, no… deities communicate with us at all. We pretty much have to figure everything out for ourselves.”

“Hmm… not at all? That’s a bit much. Though, it might be entertaining for the first few centuries,” she mused aloud before turning her attention back. “But it makes my point rather well, I think. You should be more than satisfied with whatever hints I deign provide you.”

“Fine,” I growled. “Maybe you’d be satisfied if I deigned provide you with the name, Vex?” That would have been so very appropriate.

She quickly held up another sign and smirked.

My eyebrows lifted automatically in surprise. “You actually came prepared for that?”

“Die in fire,” she chirped happily.

*****

Eventually, we settled on the name, Mia. Or I suppose Donum Mia. Technically. Whatever…

The entity formerly known as Bline… or maybe a part of Bline? I still was not sure. Anyway, she was quick to inform me that it meant ‘beloved’ in a variety of languages she had never heard spoken aloud, so she was excited by how foreign and exotic it sounded. My immediate response on hearing that was to begin brainstorming up a more appropriate replacement, but she had gotten so attached and weirdly hysterical about the whole thing that I had eventually relented.

I had picked it because it was an acronym for ‘missing in action’—playing on the idea that she was a piece of Bline left behind. Also, my limited knowledge of Latin had run dry of fitting three-letter words.

In any case, I had decided to begin exploring the island. Despite having been dropped into the middle of the ocean, I had little doubt I was still in the Dungeon. Somehow. And I suspected there was something here I needed to find.

That and I was pretty much done with talking to Mia. Despite being my Faen—whatever that implied—her refusal to be straight-forward with me made it all but pointless to continue. Though, if I were being honest with myself, I would have admitted it was mostly a decision borne out of frustration.

That did not stop her, though.

“Have you given any thought to your next skill purchase?”

She was not visible at the moment, having disappeared along with her signs.

“Why?” I asked absently, my attention diverted up the side of the craggy rock face before me.

The island had not looked all that big from a distance—perhaps no more than a mile or two from one end to the other—but now that I was up close and personal, the cliffside before me was proving quite the imposing barrier. The thing seemed to stretch almost uniformly in both directions, separating the beach from the center of the island, and I was not looking forward to climbing yet another obstacle. I had a feeling whatever I was looking for would not be on the beach.

That would have been too convenient.

“Is that still your job?” I continued. Given this new paradigm, it was quite possible she had lost her powers as a goddess, so I did not know if she was even capable of granting me new abilities.

“My tits are your job!” she yelled instantly. Then cleared her throat in embarrassment. “Sorry. I didn’t uh… Yes. The Lady has mmmph—“

I paused, distracted from my attempts at finding a potential path upward. “What? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said yes, Donum. That is the… one of the roles I am meant to fulfill as your Faen.”

“Oh.” Seems she’s not totally useless.

I paused a moment in concern as the thought filtered unbidden through my mind, but when it was clear no indignant outbursts were forthcoming, I relaxed. I guess she can’t read my mind anymore. The knowledge made me feel a bit better, but whether it would ultimately prove for the best was undetermined. There had been times when the ability to communicate nonverbally with the Lady had been critical.

Sighing, I squatted down and stared at the sand at my feet. It had mostly solidified near the cliff side, what with the tall grasses and palm-like trees scattered about, but there were still some loose patches here and there. While I pondered how to go about scaling the cliff—perhaps by constructing a rudimentary ladder out of the local vegetation—I began to idly doodle with my finger.

“Donum… what exactly do you think you’re doing?” Mia asked after a moment, showing in a stroke that the deal we had made was still in effect. That bargain could have been another explanation for why there was a Faen currently stuck in my head. She had promised ‘a degree of increased transparency,’ after all. Maybe Bline had decided to farm out the task. It was worth considering.

I shrugged. “I dunno. Just think…ing?”

I pulled my finger away from the sand and stared. For some reason, I had started to sketch out what I could remember of that bizarre alien math outlined in Moisture. I had only managed the one symbol—one of the bigger, reoccurring ones—and I still had no clue what it meant.

But it had started to glow.

“Uhm… is it supposed to be doing that?”

“I’m going to ignore that question, you fuckwit! Ass munch!” The percussive sounds of her rapidly slapping her own cheeks reverberated in my ear. “Damn it, Donum! You know that sets me off. Now, erase that before it explodes.” While I hastily complied, she huffed out a sigh. “How could you possibly know that symbol, anyway?”

I shrugged. “It was in one of those Word-books in the main room. Next to the desk? No idea what it means, though.”

“Of course, you don’t have any idea what—wait, books?”

Abruptly, there was the screeching sound of a microphone distorting, then I distinctly heard footsteps rushing off into the distance.

I waited for a few moments, but she had gone silent.

“Well, that certainly set a bee under her bonnet.”

It had been accidental, but I had been meaning to ask about that, anyway. And it was a fairly decent way of broaching the subject given Mia’s reticence to discuss things I did not already know. However, now that it was on the table, there was the possibility something interesting might come of it.

Plus, she had already let the one thing slip. If I drew a certain shape, it would explode. How useful that would be was yet to be determined. I would need to figure out just how powerful the explosion would be and how long I would have after drawing it before the reaction would occur. There were probably other variables too, but for the time being I now had a potential flameless alternative to my Detonating Sap. It even came prepackaged with a timer.

And that was cool! It made me feel all wizardy inside.

“Hey! Are you a monster?”

I blinked in surprise as the child-like voice intruded on my thoughts and glanced up. There was a little head with a shock of green hair poking over the side of the cliff, staring down at me.

“No,” I called back. “Are you?”

A few moments of hushed whispering floated down before whomever this was answered.

“That’s a dumb question,” the child retorted. “Are you dumb?”

I chuckled at the brutal frankness. “Sometimes. But I don’t think it’s so dumb. This is the Dungeon. You could be another Faen trying to play a trick on me.”

“I’m not a Faen,” the apparent boy-child shouted. “I’m a laoi!”

“I doubt that,” I called back.

I did, too. Arx had explained to me back when we had first met that people who had never been in the Dungeon before went to the tutorial for their first time. There was no way I would just happen to meet an uninitiated child in here—unless he somehow was, but that seemed spectacularly unlikely. Something else had to be going on.

“You look like you’re just a kid. Do you even have a Class?”

“I’m not a kid!” the boy shouted indignantly. “I’m eight years old!”

“He’s right, though,” another voice sounded faintly from above. This one sounded a bit higher-pitched. “You don’t have a Class, Mik.”

“So?!” Mik retorted over his shoulder. “Neither do you, Gweyir.”

“What are you two doing?” yet another voice shouted. This one was distinctly female. And adult. “Come away from there before you fall.”

“Aw, Lynnria,” Mik complained. “We weren’t going to fall. We were just talking to the dumb monster-guy.”

“Yeah, still not a monster,” I shouted, folding my arms. I considered refuting the dumb part too, but I had a feeling that would just make things worse.

A moment later, another head poked over the side. This one was no doubt the woman I had heard. Or perhaps girl? She looked pretty young. I would put her in her late teens. Like the boy, she was another laoi, but her hair was deep purple and bound into a long but messy braid.

“What are you supposed to be?” she called down. “Some trick to lure away children? We’re not so foolish as that!”

“I’m not the one trying to trick people,” I retorted. “Do you honestly think I’d believe a bunch of kids are living on a random island in the middle of the Dungeon? And not even in the tutorial?”

She scowled back at me. “We’re not living here. We’re trapped here, thank you. Three days, now.”

Three days? Hmm…

“You wouldn’t happen to all be from the same town, would you?” It was hard to be sure about the timing. What with my meeting with Bline, having been swallowed, and the recent torpor, I had lost a lot of time. It could have as easily been a day as a week since Raialie had been destroyed. But it might have been possible.

“Maybe,” she called back cautiously. “What would you know about it, Mr. Not-a-Trick?”

“Some,” I admitted.

I had no idea how it would be possible. We had been swallowed by entirely different Mouths, after all. Then again, I was sorely lacking in any sort of rulebook for this place, and the only potential source of information I might have had was currently MIA—appropriately enough—and likely to have yelled at me for my trouble.

“If you’re who I think you are, I know the name of the town. And I can describe the Mouth that swallowed it. I was on the other side of the lake at the time.”

“So what?” Mik shouted back. He was hanging precariously over the edge by using the older girl’s firm grip on his arm to keep from falling. “Everybody knows those things! You could still be a monster! Show me your teeth!”

“Hush, Mik,” the older girl admonished him before pulling him back again. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Does so!” he protested. “My mother always said to watch out for people with sharp teeth.”

She harrumphed. “Your mother’s bucket only came halfway up the well. I’ve met plenty of the kinds with sharp teeth.”

“Don’t you talk about my mother!” he screamed shrilly, then aimed a brutal kick to the older girl’s shin.

She barely even flinched. But at least she had enough sense not to retaliate. Instead, she merely stood there while the boy ran off in a huff.

After a moment, a softer voice said, “That was mean, Lynnria. She only died a few months ago.”

Lynnria lifted her chin defiantly. “He’ll get over it.”

The other girl—if they were a girl, I could not see from below—did not reply. But I did just barely hear some footsteps trailing off.

“So… Lynnria, is it?” I called.

I had not wanted to interrupt—that had sounded like a whole lot of none-of-my-business—but while they were talking, I had taken note of her outfit. It seemed purposely made to allow for freedom of movement, and she was wearing a set of thick leather pads about her knees and elbows. Most telling, though, was the bright red armband tied around her bicep.

I waited until she was looking back at me before continuing. “You’re a game-ball player, I take it?”

Her face cracked for a moment into a pleased smile, and she squatted down. “Never heard of a monster that knew about game-ball. But if you’re of the kinds, I’ve never seen your like before.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I drawled out. “But I’m no monster. I’m a Quester.”

“Yeah? What’s your name, then?” she called back.

“Donum.”

“Just Donum?” she asked. “No Clan?”

I winced, then let out a long-suffering sigh. “I’m… technically a Clan-head. And the Clan is named after me.”

“So… what? You’re Donum Donum?”

I hesitated before sucking in a quick breath. “I prefer Donum of the Clan Donum.” Then I nodded. That reference had been pretty much my entire reason for wanting to avoid that Clan name, but she would not have heard of Highlander. I should be in the clear.

“No one calls you that,” she accused immediately.

True. Not that I would admit that to some kid.

“Look, are you going to let me up there or not?”

She shrugged. “It’s not like I have a rope. What do you even want up here anyway? And don’t say you’re here to rescue us. I know better than to believe that. Where did you come from? Have you seen any of the others from town?”

I held up my hands. “Okay, let’s keep to one question at a time.”

“Now you know what it feels like,” Mia whispered in my ear, forcing me to jump slightly. I had not noticed her return. “She’s kind of cute though, don’t you think? Maybe you could make her into one of your allies. Can’t you just picture her with a shiny new set of horns?”

“Hush,” I whispered. “She’s barely more than a child. I would never—“

“What?” Lynnria called.

“Nothing,” I replied quickly. “I was just about to say that you lot are the first I’ve seen of the townsfolk. I didn’t even know it was possible to run into you. I came from…” I turned so as to point off to sea, but I could not make out the door from here. What with the currents pushing me along during my swim, I was not even sure where it should be. “Well, you may not believe this, but there was this… door? Kind of… hovering in the air.”

“Oh, neat! You mean like the crystal?” she exclaimed.

I blinked a few times in confusion, not seeing the connection. “Crystal?”

“Yeah, it’s floating over this pedestal right in the middle of the island.” She stood to gesture inland excitedly. “Come on, I’ll show you. If you really are a Quester, maybe you can get it to talk to you!”

Then she ran off.

About three seconds later, she reappeared, looking sheepish. “Sorry. I got ahead of myself there.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“How were you planning on getting up here, then?” she asked. “Are you any good at climbing?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “But I have an idea. Give me a few minutes.”

Then, more quietly, I murmured, “Mia, I think I’m ready to spend that skill point.”