For the Record

The last boss room is predictably empty, just like the other boss rooms. All told, this is a pretty expansive dungeon... a hundred and twenty floors, with a mid-boss room every five and a boss room every ten.

Is that normal?

Nyx shrugs. (Yeah, give or take. The really high-level ones are sometimes up to five hundred.)

You know, when I gave everyone the day off so they wouldn’t bother me in here, I didn’t really expect you were going to follow. Nothing better to do?

(What, you think I’m not bored? It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a dungeon, other than that shitty beginner dungeon you kept going to for snacks. At least there might be some kind of interesting variety down here, architecturally if nothing else.)

I look around at the monotonous gray and marble walls as far as the eye can see, suspiciously reminiscent of the hive’s architecture.

Is it everything you hoped for?

She manifests herself and kicks at some of the dust on the floor. “Not really. It’s all dead, except for a few traps you bungled into.”

I shrug. It was faster than going around, plus it’d be nice to know how they work if I’m going to be running this place.

“Gods don’t normally run their dungeons, you know. They’re self-operating, run by a locus of power somewhere. You could consider it like a golem or automaton as well, if you find and interface with it you could change how the dungeon works.”

Huh. Snacks...?

Nyx levels another dead look at me.

No, what I mean is that I haven’t... eaten in a long time? Consumed? Other than what Olive makes. And I haven’t lost my mind or whatever...

“Right, you don’t know. Remember what that trait turned into?”

I doublecheck my Status.

Yeah, Abyssal Hunger, right?

“Yeah, so can you actually read your Skill descriptions and so forth now?”

I try and... well, no. It still just looks like my usual Status. Focusing on different elements isn’t giving me anything more.

Sighing, my former Assistant starts explaining it. “It says you need to take in a massive amount of mana to sustain yourself, not just a pittance from draining individual ascendants.”

Huh. But I’m not doing that, so what’s going on?

“Yes, you are,” she contradicts. “You’re passively pulling mana from the plane itself, both through your own body and all your ‘kin’ you still have scattered all over. Also, I bothered to manifest. You can at least talk out fucking loud like a normal person, even if you’re not remotely normal. I’m not your Assistant anymore.”

I grumble but give in. “That’s true I guess.”

But there’s really not much here. Sure, the walls and so forth are all a nice, finely polished stone, but that’s all, other than the mana-powered mood lighting. I think when I start running this place, I’m going to arrange for them to all be off until my challengers actually enter, and then suddenly turn them on! That should be nice and dramat –

“Boring. Everyone does that.”

“Wait, really?” I whine.

“Yeah.” She walks closer to a faint mark on one wall and rubs at it with a few fingers. “If you really want to be creative, add a trap door and chute or floating platforms or something. Give it a gimmick, something they have to figure out first.”

“Platforms don’t sound too bad... I assume you’d know how to make something like that happen then?”

She sighs and turns toward me. “Well, I would have, but remember? My Class? Gone? Work down the drain?”

“Ah, right. But you know someone who could, right?” I ask.

“Probably, but they’re not going to be here. We’d have to go to them, and they’ll be wanting payment for services rendered.”

I nod. “Right, mortals and trading and all of that. They’re not my subjects so I can’t just make demands... or could I?”

“Don’t,” she snaps. “If you’re going to use my contacts you’re not going to screw them around, got it? Or else I just won’t tell you anything.”

My thoughts drift to how I could probably just force her to tell me by manipulating our bond, but I can feel her ire rise even just at that.

And for the first time in a while, I feel a disapproving throb from headmaster rabbit. I guess maybe he is still watching me?

“Of course he is, idiot. As long as you can feel that bond in your empty head, he’ll know what you’re doing. But you know what? It really sucks knowing that the thing I’m permanently bound to is still considering just, forcing me to do things I don’t want to even though I’ve finally gotten rid of that hells-damned compulsion, and the only thing stopping them is fear of something stronger,” she says with dispirited resignation.

“That’s fair.”

She snorts dismissively. “That’s all? Just that it’s fair that I’m upset?”

“What am I supposed to say? Sorry I don’t think like a mortal? Sorry I don’t know what’s right or wrong or whatever you all take for granted? I keep saying it, but I didn’t choose this. In fact, I’d argue I’m doing incredibly well considering I haven’t even existed for half a year yet! What do you want from me!?” I snap.

“I’d like to say basic humanity, but we both know that’s impossible. You’re still just pretending to be like them. At least you’re not acting all pompous and arrogant like you usually do. What, is it a side effect of being around ‘your retainers’? You don’t do that when you’re by yourself, or just around me.”

I glare at her. “I have never pretended to be ‘human’. They are prey. I have no need to mimic mere cattle.”

With a bitter laugh, she says, “Yeah, and there’s the new you again. Which one is it this time, hmm? The so-called god-queen? The genocidal demon bent on destroying all life? As stupid as you always were, you know what? I miss the old you. The new one is a fucking asshole.”

“I know!” I snarl.

And she stares at me in stunned silence.

“I know I’m an asshole!” I continue. “This is something I don’t have any control over! I keep getting hit with all these impulses, and they feel so natural that I just act on them! I’m trying, alright? I’m trying to keep this under control! And it’d be so much easier if everything didn’t feel so overwhelmingly boring now too, what am I supposed to do about that? Where did it even come from!? How is learning about a multiplanar... universe? World? Whatever! Whatever it is! How is learning about all these things I don’t know suddenly SO BORING!?”

I take a few breaths to try to center myself – I really don’t like losing my composure in front of other people. Apparently. When did that start happening?

We stand in silence for a few moments before Nyx speaks. “Is...”

“Is what?”

She puts a hand to her chin in thought. “They always say the gods built this system – the planes, ascendancy... hells, the whole damned Record, because they were bored. So bored that they’d rather die and be reborn as a mortal.”

I turn my head toward her. “What are you getting at?”

“How old was Astraea when you ate her? And how old was the Queen of Hunger before she was bound?”

“That’s... actually not a bad point.”

Delving into the feelings tied to... I don’t even know what, it occurs to me that I haven’t even done this much. I feel like maybe I’ve been avoiding it, not wanting to know what I’m becoming that isn’t me.

It’s a terrifying thought, being myself without being myself. Is that why Nyx got so mad at me when I was going to try to fix her?

“Yes.”

Well, that answers that I guess. At least one of my questions can be easily resolved. The rest? Ha.

Ha ha.

I don’t even know where to start. But that’s okay I think, since that’s not even what I was trying to figure out. It’s just so easy to get distracted by the huge open question mark that is my psyche.

But either way, I focus my will and press into the mass at my core. My efforts are rewarded by... flashes of memories, I think... some kind of formal party thing, with a bunch of people in fancy suits and dresses? Their smiles are incredibly fake, even I can tell that much, and I don’t need any guesses to tell what’s in their wine glasses considering it’s partially coagulated. For some reason it feels strange that nobody is wearing a mask – maybe they don’t care who sees them here? What the hells even is a ‘masquerade’ or whatever?

I release my will from whatever or wherever I just was to realize I’m breathing hard.

“You okay over there?” Nyx asks with an unexpected amount of worry in her voice.

I grit my teeth and nod. “Yeah. Yeah, just great. There are apparently whole-ass memories in there, not just whatever keeps happening to my, uh. Me.”

She still looks concerned. “What kind of memories?”

“I think it was called a masquerade? But nobody was wearing masks for some reason. Everyone had these awful fake smiles, and they were drinking blood.”