For the Record

Darkness surrounds me, only broken by bits of sound, flashes of color. I feel… something? Suddenly, I can tell part of me is missing, but I’m not sure how.

There are muffled voices, shouting but indecipherable. I struggle to think, but my thoughts may as well be sludge.

And then, my vision clears. I gasp for breath as if I’d been holding it, as if I needed it.

[Soul Thirst effects have temporarily abated due to external interference!]

What… does that even mean? What is going on?

(You went crazy and attacked them, idiot,) my Assistant chides. (Are you actually all there now? Well, except your arm. It’ll grow back, probably.)

Hey, you’re right. My arm is gone. Huh.

“We should kill it while we got th’ chance,” Elobahn says.

“I’m… back now, I think… What just happened?”

I take a moment to get my bearings and notice the humans in a party formation again, weapons drawn.

Izahne gives me a cautious look for a moment before breaking her stance, though she doesn’t sheath her sword. “You screamed like a banshee and dematerialized, hit us with your aura, and tried draining me again. It felt stronger this time somehow. You didn’t stop even when we threw everything we had at you, until Pearl managed to get a calming spell to stick. Do you normally lose control? It didn’t seem intentional.”

“There are spells like that? Weird. No, that wasn’t normal. One of my traits freaked out, I think.”

Abaris’ eyes flicker briefly. “It’s unlikely that your Vessel trait would have this kind of effect. I’d wager it was either Brand of Darkness or Soul Thirst, hmmm?”

“Soul Thirst. I guess I got hungry?” I offer. Meanwhile, I notice that my missing left arm has started to rebuild itself from dust seemingly materializing from nowhere. “You hit me with something stronger than last time. I can usually reuse the Skill and recover from physical damage, but this is staying.”

“Radiant magic. I hit you with Luminous Purge while within Pearl’s Aura of Serenity. It didn’t seem to affect you in the dungeon, not like this,” Izahne answers.

“You most likely have a Status characteristic that offers protection from some forms of elemental damage while in control of your faculties,” says Abaris.

The healer, who has been silently clutching her staff and shivering, suddenly shouts. “You were really scary! Don’t do that, ok?”

I shrug. “Wasn’t intentional. I guess at least you know you can hurt me now? Anyway I should probably uh, Consume something so this doesn’t keep happening…”

“You took half Izzy’s vitality! How are you still hungry!?” Pearl howls back.

“It’s in the name. Souls. I have to kill, I guess. Not that I didn’t before,” I say as I glance at my now fully regenerated hand. I flex it for a moment just for the unexpected pleasure of feeling complete. “What exactly did you do to make me stop anyway?”

The healer pouts, but answers anyway. “I cast Tranquility on you. I didn’t think it’d work!”

“It did though, Pips,” Omorth interjects, the big human resting a hand on her head and mussing up her hair. Pearl looks irritated, but doesn’t seem to be making any moves to stop him.

(You might just salvage this yet.)

Oh shut up. Wait… they said I was using Skills on them? Let me just –

[Consume has reached Level 17!]

[Planar Detachment has reached Level 8!]

[Aura of the Unwound has reached Level 5!]

[Available Skill: Lesser Regeneration used for the first time!]

[Lesser Regeneration added to Skills!]

“I got a new Skill!” I shout.

Dead silence.

***

Anyway, I’m headed back to that boring dungeon. The humans are still following me, so I assume I didn’t completely scare them off, but I did weather a fair amount of angry shouting, Elobahn threatening to really kill me next time, and Pearl slurring incoherently through tears while Omorth rubbed her back. Are all human parties this annoying?

(Pretty much par for the course, yeah,) Nyx answers. Whatever course that par is, anyway. I wonder if it’s a creature, maybe with a decent amount of vitality. Whatever.

And of course, now is when they choose to talk.

“So,” the paladin says, “earlier you said you aren’t a ‘she’.”

“Yep.”

…

“Soooo… are you a ‘he’ then? Your body looks very much like a woman.”

“I’m a dust elemental.”

That seems to confuse her for a moment.

“There isn’t one you prefer? One that feels more right? Some people or spirit beings or so forth use they or it instead,” she offers.

“Look, I really don’t care. The only reason I even bother using those for you is because Nyx keeps nagging me about how you’ll probably get mad if I don’t ‘use the right one’.”

She pauses for a moment and fiddles with one of the pouches on her belt. “You really don’t have any concept of gender, do you?”

Abaris chooses this moment to interrupt. “It is important to most of those of human or human-like races. It’s part of their language and culture. If you intend to continue interacting with those groups, I would agree with Nyx, yes. Many social rules persist out of tradition rather than rational purpose.”

I sigh hard enough that I exhale a cloud of dust – an ability I absolutely, definitely knew I had. “Why are human social customs so needlessly stupid?”

“To be fair,” Abaris continues with a wry grin, “I’m not a human. In fact, more than half of our party isn’t human.”

“Don’t tell me, that matters too, right?” I ask.

(You already know the answer,) my Assistant chimes in.

“Yes,” says Pearl, apparently deciding now is a good time to participate. “Elobahn and I are humans. Izzy is an indra, Omorth is an eldra, and Abaris is an obounis!”

“And humans… and, uh, ‘human-like races’ really get hung up on this?”

“How would you feel if someone called you a wraith now?”

I shrug. “Well, they’d be wrong, but I can’t say I’d care.”

“That’s… not very helpful,” she says.

Abaris comes to her rescue. “I suppose this is another circumstance you can simply view like gender. It doesn’t make sense to you, and you clearly don’t care, but other people do, so you should probably at least adopt the custom while interacting with humans and human-like races.”

We continue walking in merciful silence, certainly not at all related to me turning off my hearing (I tried – I literally can’t turn True Sense off). Until, of course, one of them chooses to shatter it completely.

“So, we voted,” says Izahne. “And… congratulations, welcome to the party!”

I stumble to a stop.