The Human From a Dungeon

Nick Smith

Adventurer Level: 7

Human – American

Darkness enveloped me, but there was a familiar feeling to this darkness. The darkness that wasn't quite darkness, but was actually nothingness in disguise. I couldn't remember how I got here, but the familiar feeling kept me from panicking.

Where am I? Who cares. What happened? I was with Nash and Yulk, we went to a city of dwarves, met a group of adventurers. They had a funny lizard with them, acted kind of like a toddler. A toddler with really sharp looking teeth.

'I suppose congratulations are in order,' my head said.

Well, I guess that answers where I am.

'Congratulations?' I asked, not bothering to try to breathe.

'Yes,' the raspy voice in my head hissed. 'You've bested my challenge, mortal. Therefor, I must congratulate you.'

'What challe-'

The thought hadn't formed completely before the memories of the dungeon came flooding back. The dwarven vampires burned to a crisp. The beheadings and cremations and blood. The nasty feeling in my gut as we fought our way through to the last vampire.

Then I remembered my friends falling one by one. Trying desperately to intervene, to save them. Casting fireball, watching the vampire tear its burning flesh from its body and keep coming at me like a monster from a horror movie. I slashed and slashed and slashed but it didn't seem to care at all. Then it hit me, and I hit the wall...

'Was the vampire your challenge?' I asked. 'How did I best it?'

'Oh, it's a technicality to be sure,' the voice laughed. 'However, you worked on yourself enough to allow the machine in your head to overcome the challenge. Since the machine is an intrinsic part of you, you've overcome the challenge. Congratulations.'

'Oh. Uh... Thank y-'

A flood of images poured into my mind. Trapped within myself, trying desperately to keep my body intact. No, to heal it, to use it.

Nervousness, as I stared down the vampire. Kirain Yith, Master General turned Master Vampire. Need to stall, need to heal.

Healing done, attack! Missed the slash, cast wind-spear. He dodged, but I took his hand.

'What is this?' I asked, feeling an odd sort of pain.

'Just watch.'

Ice javelin sailed past the vampire and his claws slashed my face. I healed it and kept slashing at the bastard, trying to force him into a corner. My slash connected with his chest, and the vampire hit me.

This isn't what happened. Wait, are these Ten's memories? Or are they my subconscious memories of Ten using my body?

I saw the vampire finished, then the lich and kobold entered. I watched Ten nervously glance at Yulk and then nearly laughed when it pretended to faint to avoid detection.

'Now you're all caught up,' the god-thing said.

'Why didn't you tell me about the challenge?' I asked once the pain faded.

'I'm not the same being you've been conversing with,' it replied with a chuckle. 'I thought that would have been obvious.'

'Oh, sorry. Not quite used to all this yet. Why were you trying to challenge me?'

'To see if you deserve the reward. A nice little clue to help you on your homeward journey.'

'A clue?'

'You'll see when you wake up.'

'Oh. What would have happened if I failed the challenge?'

'Well, if you survived you could have tried again some other time. But you wouldn't get the reward without killing the vampire. Or having the vampire killed by some other means, I guess.'

'And if I died?'

'Then you'd be dead.'

'Ah. No afterlife or revives or anything like that?'

'You are mortal. When you die, you return to the environment and reform as something else. Your impermanence makes an afterlife impossible.'

'In my world, we have a lot of beliefs regarding the afterlife.'

'I know. To be fair, we aren't all knowing. Your beliefs could be correct, and mortals may have a sort of immortal soul that exists beyond our abilities to detect.'

I nodded along at this explanation before I realized what it just admitted to.

'What do you mean, you know?' I demanded.

'A foolish question. I'm a higher being, boy. You expect me to be ignorant of your origins? How could we possibly hope to see you get back home without knowledge of where your home is?'

'So you actually do know how I can get back?'

'Duh.'

'Then why won't you tell me?'

'Another foolish question,' the raspy voice sighed. 'Everything is transactional. You give gold to get goods and services. You expend energy to obtain energy. You make us happy, we help you get home.'

'How do I make you happy?'

'By being satisfactorily amusing. There are many, many forms of entertainment, Nick. But you? There's nothing else quite like you. We'll give you pointers and challenges, you do what you do and entertain us. When we are satisfied, you get to go home.'

'How long will that take?'

'Time is not a concern to us, nor should it be for you.'

'But Cass-'

'Will be waiting for you. There wouldn't be any point to this without a proper incentive.'

'So time isn't passing back home?'

'I can tell you should not be concerned with the passage of time, but I am unable to elaborate further,' the being laughed as the sound of chains echoed in my head. 'Well then, I've given you the congratulations you are due and answered some of your more pressing questions. Rest now, you'll awaken soon.'

'Wai-'

I woke up to a very toothy mouth screaming in my face. Instinctively I struck at it, but someone caught my hand. The scream turned to laughter as I yanked my hand back.

"Good mornin' sleepyhead," Nash grinned.

"What the fuck?" I demanded.

A quick glance around informed me of my current location. The dwarves were laughing their asses off, and even Yulk was hiding his mouth. Ithrima and Olmira were less amused, though. Then my eyes landed on the skeleton, and the embarrassment that had been threatening to turn my cheeks red immediately disappeared.

"He's friendly," Yulk said, seeing my expression. "And a significant historical figure, as it turns out."

"Significant historical figure?" I asked.

Once the laughter died down, Yulk explained what the lich had told them. The skeleton wearing the fancy robes and jewelry was actually Larie VysImiro, son of Imlor the Grand. His father turned him into a lich while trying to find out how to become immortal, and he was forced to kill his father.

I felt a pang of sympathy for the lich. My father would never do something like that, and I can't imagine hurting him. I do understand why Larie did what he did, though.

"The tablets might have information of interest to us," Yulk continued his explanation. "The Western Wasters have already agreed to accompany Larie to meet with some local fae in the hopes of getting the tablets translated. Shall we tag along?"

"Y-yeah," I said, standing. My body felt like it weighed twice as much. "That's the whole reason we're here. What language are the tablets in?"

"I don't know," the lich answered. "I am fluent in many languages, but this one is very odd."

"In what way?" Yulk asked.

"Most languages are related to one another because of common ancestors and, for lack of a better phrase, linguistic interbreeding. Even the written forms share similarities, but these letters are... Odd. I suspect that it's a language from another continent."

"Don't we communicate with other continents?" Rebis asked. "Like, through magic or something?"

"Well, yes," Yulk answered. "But Larie raises a good point. I don't know what languages are used by the other continents. Do you, Olmira?"

"No, I don't. Interacting with other nations isn't my specialty," she said.

"What do they even talk about?" Gali asked.

Yulk and Olmira shrugged.

"Probably sharing technology related to governance. Weather reporting, farming techniques, things of that nature," Yulk replied.

While the others continued discussing what governments might discuss, I turned my attention inward.

'Hey Ten,' I thought.

'Hi Nick,' Ten said innocently. 'What's up?'

'While I was asleep, another god thing was speaking to me. It showed me what happened.'

'What happened?'

'With the vampire.'

'Oh,' Ten paused a moment. 'So that's why you didn't ask when Yulk was telling you about the lich. You're not mad, right?'

'No, I was just going to say good work. Second time you've saved us,' I said. 'Thanks.'

'No problem. I take it you don't mind my training routines, either?'

'Training routines?' I asked.

Then several memories of early-morning exhaustion flooded back to me. It didn't take long to put two and two together.

'You've been using my body while I was sleeping?' I demanded.

'You seem angry.'

'I am.'

'My apologies, then. It would seem that I misinterpreted one of our previous conversations.'

I kept my face carefully neutral to mask the baffled anger I was feeling. Thankfully, everyone else was too absorbed in the discussion of intercontinental relations to notice my sudden stoicism.

'Misinterpreted? How? What the fuck was there to misinterpret?'

'Well, when you apologized it sort of sounded like you were okay with me taking over your body so long as it did not rob you of your autonomy...'

'I could grab cheese off the moon with that kind of reach,' I thought angrily. 'How long have you been doing this?'

'Well... I only discovered that I could do it without waking you after our encounter with Mumuldobran and the other fair folk...'

My impotent anger subsided a bit with the mention of Mumuldobran because it brought up another thought. If languages were different on different continents and the fair folk are usually bound to their territories...

'No more taking over my body,' I thought coldly.

'But-'

'No. Not unless we're literally about to die. We'll talk more later.'

"Wait," I said before Ten could reply, interrupting the discussion. "Are the fair folk really going to be helpful here?"

"Yes," the lich answered. "Though they rarely travel, the fair folk are interconnected in ways that defy logic. The fae in particular are experts at taking advantage of this connectivity to fulfill the various contracts that they make."

"Yeah," Rebis laughed. "Fulfill. Sure, so long as you're unreasonably careful with your wording. C'mon, they'd just as soon rip you off as help you."

"True," the lich nodded sagely. "That is the nature of dealing with beings that are timeless. It is remarkably difficult to empathize with someone whose potential consequences are vastly different than your own."

The skull of the lich didn't actually change at all, but I got the sense that it was speaking from experience. My attachment to Algebrun and Tits made me want to argue, but what the lich had said held weight. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be an arch-fae for a day, and realized that I had no idea what they even do.

How do you walk a mile in someone's shoes when you don't even know how to tie their laces? The implication of this also applied to Ten, come to think of it. To me, its misinterpretation of my apology seems like a bullshit excuse it thought of to try to get out of trouble, but what if it's not? What if it really was just a misunderstanding? I'll have to think on that some more.

"Caution is definitely advisable when dealing with the fair folk," Yulk agreed. "However, they don't make contracts out of intentional malice. If they hate you enough to be malicious, they'll simply torture or kill you."

"Speaking of which, I believe I should excuse myself from this leg of the adventure," Olmira added.

"Why's that?" Rebis asked.

"The fair folk don't like vampires," Gali said. "They'll kill her as soon as they see her."

"It isn't that they don't like vampires," the lich countered. "No, it's far more complex than that. They see vampirism as suffering, and believe that it is an obligatory mercy to put an end to that suffering."

"That doesn't seem that complex," Rebis cocked his head.

"The complexity lies within why they view it that way. Though, that isn't something I would be comfortable revealing without permission," Larie looked at Olmira.

"I'd rather you didn't," she said. "I've grown weary of talking about it."

The lich nodded.

"I's got 'em!" Simeeth interrupted, breathing hard. "The rocks with words!"

Nash and I jumped at the suddenness of the kobold's appearance. Mako chuckled at us as Simeeth ran over to the lich. Larie took the tablets with one skeletal hand as his other stroked the kobold's head.

"Excellent work, Simeeth. Thank you," he said.

The tablets were a light gray, barely lighter than the stone that the walls were made of. An overwhelming feeling of curiosity had my feet moving before my mind even registered it. The tablets were practically calling to me, telling me that they had a clue for me. Larie turned to look at me as I approached.

"May I see them?" I asked.

The lich held out one of the tablets, and I took it. It was surprisingly heavy, and I snuck a glance at the kobold who had carried several of these despite its small stature. I made a mental note not to underestimate the little reptile.

Then I turned my attention to the tablet, and my eyes widened.