“You’ll experience some disorientation,” Methol said when she noticed my staring about. “You’re weaning yourself off the support harness and some stuff’s going to hit you differently. Give yourself some time and you should bounce back. Most do.”
Well, that explained some things at long last. My strange reactions early on. The way I’d felt so disconnected from everything, while at the same time feeling everything just shy of muted. It made me question Eternity’s claims about my free will and how much of that I could exert.
Was I even free at all? Or was I travelling some predefined path that Eternity had set up for me?
Or maybe I was just being my paranoid self. Always a high possibility of that one.
“And this happens to everyone that gets brought here?” I asked, staring at my hands as if seeing them for the first time.
I hadn’t noticed before just how many fresh scars I’d picked up in just a few days. They were all over my arms as well, a stark reminder that I hadn’t actually dreamed up any of the chaos trailing me. In spite of Eternity’s support, I had been fighting tooth and nail to live. That had still been me doing it all, not Eternity goading or guiding me.
I could trace my thought processes and compare them to my past life. Stubborn to the point of idiotic—
“It happens to most of us.” Methol cut into my spiralling self-reflection. “If you continue to pursue insight, you’ll get more changes and odd feelings. That, at least, is normal.”
“What happens if I stop?” I asked, the thought popping into my head. “Right now, what happens if I just stop? I settle down here and live my life as a farmer or something.”
Methol laughed softly. “I wouldn’t stay long in a furnar settlement if I were you.” She pointed towards the far side of the village, opposite the way I’d snuck in. “The furnar generally build around a lifelong, nigh immortal queen. Their queens tend to eat the people they don’t like.”
I scoffed. “I’m plenty likeable.”
“What you are, Klaus, is edible. And that counts for a whole lot more around here than how nice your smile is.”
That deflated my bravado. “Ah. Still, the question stands. Let’s say I stop chasing dungeons, settle down, live a hermit’s life in the forest. What then?”
She shrugged, “You live alone in the forest, I suppose. Would probably get eaten by a shadowbeast eventually. They roam these parts.”
This was beginning to annoy me. “How long did you say you’ve been here with Eternity? You sound a lot like it.”
It was her turn to scoff. “I sound nothing like Ever. And if you really must know, absolutely nothing would happen. You would live and do whatever you please. That’s all.”
“And Eternity would just leave me be? Just like that?”
“As I’ve said countless times, yes,” Eternity grumbled on my shoulder. “You can—”
I raised a finger. “I can do whatever, be whoever, go wherever. Yes, yes. Now shush and let the nice blue lady answer.”
Methol raised her hands above her head and stretched. I heard a symphony of pops and crackles, and her face looked bored of the question, which only made me wonder how many others like me she’d met. “Your Eternity is honest. You can just stay and nothing would happen. At some point you would achieve self-sufficiency and your dew drop would evaporate. No point in hanging around someone who’s found their niche and wishes to remain stationary.”
“You’d disappear?” I asked the dragon.
“Yes. My purpose would be fulfilled once you’d be stable and able to handle yourself. Past that, you’d not need me.”
Not sure how I felt about that. Chose not to think about it just then.
“What’s a dew drop? Why do you call Eternity that?”
“Seems self-explanatory,” Methol said.
By now I was certain she was bored. I mean, what did she expect? She was the first person who knew something about what I was, and she could answer my questions. It was absurd not to ask them. If she didn’t like my curiosity, she could’ve simply kept her mouth shut from the moment we met.
“It’s not self-explanatory to me,” I grumbled.
“I’ll answer this, but please let it be your last question. I’d like to see the node in person,” Methol warned. “You should rest. I can deal with the cleanup.”
“Like Hell you will. If you’re going in there, I’m coming with. Now tell me what a bloody dew drop is.”
Methol rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh, before talking in what was the equivalent of a college assistant repeating the day’s assignment for the fifth time before lunch.
“Ever and Eternity, and Tiamat’s Silence, are what we call dew drops. They are fragments of Eternity—by the way, you should consider renaming yours or it will get seriously confusing at one point—who bond with us as we gain insight. They have various functions, most of which are to do with our interface and its safety and maintenance. Does that answer your question?”
“No. But it’ll do for now.”
With some food and water in my belly, and almost an hour’s rest, I was feeling well enough to delve the dungeon again. Maybe not up to fight any of the furnar gatherers, but I wasn’t feeling exhausted anymore. Probably a placebo effect or some such, but I welcomed it.
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“So what insight are you at?” I asked as I brought myself to my feet. “Since you seem to know a lot of what’s going on.”
“I can’t say,” Methol answered. There was a playful glint in her eyes that suggested she was being an arse.
“Like Hell you can’t. Is she lying, Eternity?”
“Yes,” the dragon confirmed. “And for context, she’s at insight level seven.”
I whistled in appreciation.
“And what level overall?”
“You don’t ask a lady that question,” Methol complained. I could see her cheeks get a bit flustered. “It’s not polite.”
“Telling me I’m dim is not polite. Learning who I’m about to go into a dungeon with is just sensible, I’d say. Wasn’t that the sort of thing you’ve ripped into me for?”
“Fair point.” Methol rose too and held Ever in her hands. She set the dew drop down on the well’s lip. “I’m level 67 if you really must know. Well on my way to hitting 68 in the next tenday or so.”
“Awesome. You can lead the way then,” I said and swung my feet over the well’s edge. “Eternity, take care of Crystal and Tusk when they wake up. Tell them we won’t be long.”
If I, at level 8, could pick off the various furnars in the dungeon, then Methol, at 67, could probably clear the whole place with barely any effort. Provided she hadn’t levelled up something absurd like Insult Mastery or whatever.
Was it wise to go back into the dungeon with a stranger? Probably not. Was I doing it out of misplace spite regarding the earlier dressing down? Definitely.
Was that stupid of me? Very definitely. But fuck it, you only live once, and I wasn’t about to let some rando unknown waltz into the place I’d just finished bleeding for, much less let her get near Melenith unsupervised.
I was always the person who grabbed responsibility for each deployment or project I was involved in. It was one of my superpowers back home, to just be the guy that actually feels responsible for how the work’s coming along, keep in contact with the client, do project management when there was no project manager worth a shit—which was always.
For once, I landed on my feet. When Methol dropped lithely by me, her clothes had changed. The loose tunic was gone and she now wore a tight, black leather vest. Her arms were bare up to the shoulders, and her skin was crisscrossed by countless scars of her own. In that, we were of a kind.
As I stared, a pair of metal gauntlets appeared on her hands. They were the same colour as my sword.
“Where were you holding those?” I asked. “And you can just equip stuff?”
“Of course. You’ll get to do this too, if you choose your skills right.”
“I assume you won’t tell me what skills those are, right?”
“Naturally, no.”
“Even here? Away from Ever and Eternity?”
Methol straightened her back and squared her shoulders. Her hair tied itself back into a ponytail.
“It’s a matter of protocol, Klaus. I’m not gagged, yes, but in a few areas I happen to agree with Eternity. Not giving you more information than what you already have is one such area. Long-term, this is a good approach.”
Before I rallied my wits for a different tact, she raised a hand in my face. “I would kindly ask you to not insist. Even my presence here is already polluting your journey and endangering your self-determination. Unfortunately, I have my own goals here that cannot be postponed. If you continue down this path, I promise I will make it up to you once you reach your fifth insight level. All right?”
I nodded and stored away the whole conversation into the weird shit file. There was some data in there that I could probably extract.
“Gonna tell me your class at least?” I asked as I reached for a torch.
Methol snapped her fingers and a blob of light appeared to hover over our heads. It lit up the passage better than a 150 watt light bulb. I had to shield my eyes.
“Easier than carrying a torch,” she said. “I’m a [Wardbreaker].” She made a fist and her gauntlet glowed. “If I yell duck, I strongly suggest you drop to the floor immediately, no questions asked. I may not look it, but I’m a pretty nasty hitter.”
“Noted. So, you want to meet Melenith?” I asked as we set down. “She might not be in the best mood yet.”
“No. I’d like to go beneath the central chamber, into the memory level. I want to see what was being prepared here.”
“Correct me if I’m understanding this wrong: the first chamber is the core room, yes? And the one beneath is what the dungeon… generates? From memories?”
“Pretty much, yes,” Methol nodded. “I’d rather you didn’t call this a dungeon, but that’s pretty much how it works. Nodes gather mana. They use the excess to craft a whole simulacrum of the memories of the people living in the node’s vicinity.”
“And if there are no people?”
“Then you get a wild node. Fantastic salvage inside, but dangerous. I don’t recommend you try to delve one without support, at least not until you gain a couple sub-classes to improve your combat versatility.”
The dungeon—I liked the term far better than node so Methol could just choke—was much quieter than when I’d left it. The shadows didn’t seem as terrifying. The spider webs were nothing more than silk draped over walls. It wasn’t hot anymore.
“I still don’t understand why these things even exist,” I said as I showed Methol the way to the far door. Melenith was still beneath and I decided we’d leave her alone for now, to grieve in peace.
“I can’t say,” Methol said. It was upsetting how much she sounded like Eternity.
“I’d answer something, but I’m decided on treating you as a lady,” I growled.
She insisted on leading the way down into the mine and I was all too happy to let her.
“If you run into other corrupted nodes and clear them,” she said as she walked, “I suggest you come back after you deal with the corruption. There are often memory artefacts generated within the node.”
“Like these gloves?” I wiggled my fingers. “They’re really comfy.”
“Like those, and better, yes. There are rewards to be had in deeper nodes, and some of them will be of spectacular quality.” She raised a gauntleted hand and wiggled her own fingers. “Like my gauntlets. At insight four, you’ll be able to inspect items worn by others.”
“And what do those do?”
Methol made a fist and her gauntlet sparked into blinding flashes of lightning. My hair stood on end and I could taste iron in the air. Even my teeth buzzed before she dismissed the glow.
“They’re very pretty,” Methol said without turning.
The breathing was gone. Entirely. I was almost surprised when we reached the bottom of the stairs and there was no more glow, no more noise, nothing but the quiet, empty cavern beyond.
“And invest in torches. Always carry torches if you can’t get some scrolls of light.” Methol pushed open the door and stepped into the pitch black beyond.
The cavern was pitch black save for our floating light orb. There was smoke in the air. I could smell it and taste it. Acrid, almost sulphuric, thicker than it had been before.
The orb illuminated still sheets of smoke drifting over the central pit. Nothing else moved in the cavern. The silence set my teeth on edge. Even so, I held my shield up as I approached the edge, just in case a gatherer on the other side decided to test its aim on me.
“Hmm,” Methol hummed as she set off down the narrow ledge, walking as if nothing could harm her.
Then again, at her level, maybe nothing in there could?
Personally, I’d discovered a whole new respect for my mortality and was going to exercise far more care for my mortal coil. Already the shield felt heavier in my arms, and the descent had winded me some. Eternity’s support had apparently worked even in dungeons. I would gain back that energy and strength, and I assumed a lot was to do with my stats.
“This place was filled with furnars,” I said, voice kept just above a whisper. “They were digging the rock and searching for obsidian.”
“More like, they were digging for condensed mana,” Methol said, looking into one of the now barren hollows. “Just happened to look like obsidian, as that would fit the theme here.”
“What’s condensed mana?”
“Something very dangerous, and the whole reason I’m out here in the first place.”
“Wha—”
“I’m not going to tell you more. Just keep in mind, everything that is mined from a node, in any shape or form, is pure mana. If you were to bring up a piece of this obsidian, into the outside world, you’d be walking around with a bomb in your pocket.”
Cold sweat drenched my back.
“H-how big of a bomb?” My voice shook.
“A piece the size of your fist, if unstable, could probably crater the entire village above. Why do you ask?”
My belt suddenly felt as if it weighed several tonnes and I stumbled. Had to grab hold of the wall to hold myself up.
My voice cracked. “No particular reason.” I let out an involuntary gasp of laughter. “Just curious.”
Hope everyone's had a jolly New Year and everyone got something better than coal in their stockings. We return now to our regularly scheduled disaster marathon.