B3 C57: Cracks in the Door

An entire blimp’s worth of purple fog filled every inch of the mental space containing it until, without warning, it all began rushing in the same direction. As if some massive entity within was greedily sucking it up, the gas found the stygian entrance to the Dungeon of Tragedies and squeezed itself through the many breaks in the door. With each passing second, the cracks widened until the door was more purple than black, until-

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Panic. Like bile rushing up to the very top of my throat, I felt it well up within me. I needed to do something, anything! This wasn’t supposed to be how things ended -- my life was finally starting to get on track! I had a home here, friends, hobbies, classes. Why, why, why? Or if there was nothing for me to do, I needed anyone to help, god, please! Please!

And then.

Oh.

So much stress and tension. All of it seemed to flee me at once.

My muscles relaxed.

My tears stopped.

And why was I panicking so much, anyway? Weird.

I mean, sure, I was really sad about Emin, but that could wait, couldn’t it? I was kind of in the middle of something right now.

Although, that’s not a huge deal either, is it? How was Warram going to kill me anyway? As long as Law’s Embrace was on, he couldn’t hurt me. I doubted his confession skill would get through my mental resistance. Plus, with all the training I’d done, I doubted he’d have an easy time killing me with poison either.

My body was feeling… strange. Like I was floating outside of it. Detachedly, I noted as Warram entered my cell, cut a small hole in the fabric near my last obfuscation chain, and yanked it out. He then bound me with all manner of chains, and as their metal touched my skin, I felt my mana start to drain.

Bummer. I tried to use my own mana manipulation skills to stop the outward flow. It worked to a limited degree, but my skill was too low.

Once I was fully bound, Warram at last released his skill on me. My lungs sucked in by reflex, giving me the first full breath I’d had since clearing the dungeon.

“Wonderful. Now that you’re able to have a civilized conversation, let’s try for a repeat, shall we?” Warram activated his confessional skill once again, this time much more focused. “I want to know exactly what made Suds bring you here and what plans he has; I want to know more about your settlement; and I want to know what god your boon is from.”

To say his skill pressed at my mind would be a hyperbole. It barely even connected before it slid off completely.

“That’s nice,” I replied. “It’s nice to want things.” Although maybe I could tell him about Dex? It would be a certain sort of karmic justice if he actually did kill me only for all of his future boons and stats to get randomized like mine. I’d be too dead to enjoy it, but it would still be funny.

This did not appear to be the answer Warram was looking for. He started shouting about all the ways he could get me to talk, each more painful or invasive than the last, but I tuned him out.

Escaping. Do I have anything?

No longer fully frozen, I flexed, trying to break free from the chains binding me. My Strength was nothing to laugh at, but it appeared Warram had done his research, because they barely budged.

That wasn’t to say my efforts were pointless. Something helpful did come of them. Helpful and strange.

You have learned a new skill: Impairment Resistance

Increases your resistance against any restrictive or movement-impairing effects. For static effects, this will aid you in breaking free from them. For temporary effects, this will additionally decrease the duration they affect you for. For channeled effects, this will additionally increase the cost and effort required to maintain them on you.

Prerequisites:

25 Dexterity

It was the very skill I’d been hoping to gain for ages now. Only, it wasn’t supposed to be possible for me to gain. My Dexterity was too low.

Oh. Wait.

I had felt a noticeable speed increase in the wake of the dungeon. Having dismissed all my notifications, though, I hadn’t known why.

As Warram threatened me with some form of water torture mixed with a truth spell, I scrolled through the wealth of notifications I’d been sitting on. A bunch of them were skill levels, with Heat Resistance, Death Magic, and Pain Resistance comprising the majority. There were also a duo of stranger skill-ups that looked wrong for lack of a better word.

Traum…??!on ?? …ed  17.

?!x$$ …ppresion has !!! 18?

I scrolled a bit further down, finding the entries I was looking for.

You have defeated a Reforged War-Titan! Based on your contribution to the fight and spread across all surviving members, you have been granted 1108xp.

Congratulations! You have cleared the Sylum Metal Mine!

Combined with the influx of experience from hitting the Apprentice rank in both fire and ice magic, plus the extra bump from clearing a hidden room, it was more than enough to earn me a more important notification.

Congratulations! You have reached level 14!

+1 Constitution

+3 Strength

+3 Endurance

+1 Intelligence

+1 Wisdom

+2 Dexterity

Having previously sat at 24 Dexterity, I finally hit my last threshold too. That seemed to be important to the system, achievements and notifications rolling in, but presently, all I had eyes for was my threshold bonus.

Congratulations! You have reached the first Dexterity threshold!

Gain the ability: Made to Move

Gain the ability: Exertion

Made to Move

Modifies the user’s body to better handle fast movements and protects from common Dexterity-related harm. Greatly reduces the damage suffered from high-speed obstacle collisions. Enhances user’s ability to adjust to rapid jerks and changes in direction. Increases the force required to hobble the user or otherwise injure them by bending their body out of alignment. Additional points in Dexterity will enhance this effect.

Exertion

When moving, either normally or through the use of a movement skill, stamina may now be exerted to go faster or otherwise increase the effects of the skill used. Additional points in Dexterity will enhance this effect.

Neat. It was nice to know that someone couldn’t kill me just by summoning a barrier in front of me when I was running really fast.

Unfortunately, there were still a good deal of other ways to kill me. Case in point, for all that I was apparently faster and more flexible now, that didn’t help me dodge as Warram slowly and shakily dragged a blade against my arm. He shouted something about ignoring him, but I was too busy to pay him any mind.

I have class points, right? Two from Fire Magic. Two from Ice Magic. One more from leveling.

Anything that could help out? I tried to pull myself into my class space, waiting for the usual gray fog to coalesce and transport me, but it never formed.

Class space inaccessible while mana-locked.

Unfortunate. Guess I’d be doing things the old-fashioned way then?

I pushed hard against the chains, happy to find that they weren’t enchanted with any sort of stamina-draining effect like they were for mana. By now, Warram was pulling out all manner of tools from a spatial pouch, some of which I couldn’t figure out, some of which had very obvious and very unsavory purposes.

It wasn’t too long until I got the notification I’d been after.

Impairment Resistance has reached level 2!

The lowest levels always did come the fastest. Actually, this was kind of familiar in a way! Just grinding up my resistance skills with Warram. And just like in class, hopefully I’d get my chance to stab him soon. Much more forcefully.

A quick scan of the rest of my notifications revealed nothing that could help me, which was unfortunate, because doing nothing but flexing against my chains was stunningly boring. Against my better judgment, I decided to pay some attention to whatever Warram was up to.

“... am I missing something? Is it related to the boon she got? I know I don’t have the resources to make a zone of truth as strong as the archmage’s, but her Mental Resistance shouldn’t be high enough to ignore me like this.”

Joke’s on you, “War Man.” My Mental Resistance was only at the Initiate rank, but that wasn’t all I had at my disposal. Between the Stygian Citadel bolstering and shrouding my mind alongside the various boosts I got from God’s Mind and my first Intelligence threshold, I was more than capable of punching above my weight. Plus, if Warram was an Antagonist, didn’t that make him god-touched? My God-Trodden’s Augment for hitting level 10 in Mental Resistance was probably active too.

Rather than despairing, unbinding me, and letting me go with an apology (my preferred option), Warram opted for something less pleasant.

“So be it. You will be heartened to hear that the penalties my class applies to me for violent actions do not apply to interrogation. It’s a rather important part of being a guard, after all.” He picked out one of the many instruments he’d laid out, a sort of barbed scalpel, brandishing it like a weapon.

When it bit into me, I barely even felt it. Was that my Pain Resistance at play? The skill level felt too low for that kind of effect, though. Still, it was hardly like I was complaining. Free skill training without the pain!

He cycled through a few more tools, the entire time hurling invectives and threats at me. “Put on a brave face all you want, but before we’re out, you’ll be lying on the ground next to that fool of a researcher.”

I spared a peek at Emin’s body, finding it didn’t disturb me that much. That was odd, wasn’t it? I felt like that was supposed to bother me a bit more.

“Once I’m done here, it’ll be the four of you alongside those two noble friends of yours. Do you even feel bad? Everyone who becomes friends with you pays for it.” I felt the gentle tickle of his mental skill once more as he tried to coax me into some sort of confession. “And it’s all because you lied to them about who you were. Isn’t it time to come clean, Protagonist?”

Well, that wasn’t fair. I wasn’t the one who’d killed Nella and Oachin. Still, he had a point. Did I feel bad? I was pretty sure I did. I liked Nella. She’d been annoying at the start, but once we’d broken through her abrasive shell, she’d quickly grown on me. I’d… miss her, I thought. Her brother too, despite how rarely he spoke.

“In fact, the whole party belongs together, don’t you think? If that Valis brat isn’t already dead because of you, perhaps I’ll finish the job once I’m done here. Judging by the state she was in, I doubt it’ll take much.”

That was… wrong. I knew that was wrong. I had to get out of here to check up on her, didn’t I? She wasn’t allowed to be dead.

Or else every friend I have in the city will be dead save for Verin. All of them gone. All in one day.

Whew! That was strangely heavy for a moment. I wasn’t really a fan of that.

“Her parents will probably curse your name for the rest of their lives, you know that?”

I thought back to the brief introduction I’d gotten to Alara’s parents. Unassuming sweet people whose one fear in life was what would happen to their daughter. They probably would hate me, wouldn’t they? They’d never wanted her in that dungeon in the first place. It felt… bad.

Warram placed a small rod against my skin which rapidly heated up, burning against my arm. For a brief moment, I just stared at it, barely noticing what he was doing to me. After a few seconds, however, I felt just the smallest twinge of something.

Is that pain, maybe?

It started to grow even as I watched until I caught myself wincing. It was pain. How odd.

“I’ll stop in that settlement of yours too. Emin said that damned Barber is there too, isn’t he? He’s not your real father, of course, but perhaps I’ll add him to the count once I’m sporting a new boon.”

I didn’t… I didn’t want that. Any of it. None of it could happen.

The pain intensified, magnifying itself over and over until it was on par with what I suffered through in class.

Again and again, Warram tried to use his confessional skill on me, succeeding in nothing but bringing my focus to my mental space. That proved to be a mistake, however, as it was with some horror that I noted the state of my Dungeon of Tragedies. When the hell had it gotten so bad?

At a visible rate, a thick purple fog was building up outside of it.

Is that why I’m feeling so strange? Trauma Suppression?

As the cloud of trauma manifested itself in my mental space, however, I started to feel things once again -- things I wasn’t sure I wanted to feel. The loss. The anguish. The self-loathing. The anger. And the pain. They all pulsed through all my muscles like a faint and dull ache, but as that damned cloud continued to grow, so too did all of them.

Robbed of my detachment, I couldn’t hide my suffering any longer, barely stifling a cry as the Warram’s work made itself known to my nerves. Unfortunately, this did not go unnoticed.

“Finally. I’m not sure what sort of strange skill you were using, but I don’t particularly care, either. Now we can truly get started.”

I wasn’t even sure he needed to. The fog within my mental space seemed to be growing of its own accord by now as my mind was inevitably pulled back into the events of the past day. All at once, my mind seemed to recall the many wounds Warram had inflicted on me while I hadn’t been feeling them, and I screamed.

Out. I need to get out. I need to see Alara. I need to make sure everyone’s okay. And I need to live, god, please, I want to live. Warram resumed his “interrogation” and barely did I even notice, so consumed was I with all of it. The agonies blended together, the physical and the emotional until I ceased to be human, ceased to exist at all outside of the all-encompassing singular concept of pain.

That, and the fog. It built up, expanding until it hit some limit, and then compressing, pushing against the confines of my mind. Even with everything else, the novel type of discomfort pushed through, and I could feel my mind start to shatter under the pressure.

I wasn’t sure how long it took. How long I was forced to endure all of that. But eventually all of my thoughts burned each other away, boiling down to only one.

Please make it stop. Take it away. Just take it away.

As if waiting for just that request, my mind complied.

The fog stirred, gently at first, and then increasingly chaotically. It began to spin violently, like a tornado, and just as destructively too. Everywhere the roiling raging mass of fog spun was ravaged, the citadel, the walls, the defenders, all of them sucked up within.

Until, at last, it reached the door. Already cracked and broken, already on its last legs, it didn’t even bother to open to admit the wealth of trauma that sought entry. Instead, it surged through the gaps, wearing them away, and then-

CRACK.

It shattered.

Not a door any longer, but a collection of crumbling pieces, each as black as night. But I didn’t want them to break. That would make all the fog rush out again.

And I wanted it gone.

By sheer will, I held the door in place, lost to the world as I bent my entire will towards maintaining the barrier, allowing the fog to enter but not a single speck of it to escape. Time lost all meaning as the trauma sank into its prison.

Until some seconds or eternities later, it was all gone. And I felt glorious. Wonderful, beautiful, perfect. Not a drop of pain or grief. Perhaps a touch empty, but even emptiness was bliss in comparison to before.

If I had but a single complaint, it would be the focus I had to maintain to keep the barrier up. Even now, the fog battered against the broken door, seeking to flow out and into my mental space. The moment I let it do so, I knew it would be over, and even then, I couldn’t bring myself to care right now.

No longer fighting tooth and nail, however, I let half of my attention drift back towards my surroundings, finding only one thing.

Warram.

He hadn’t stopped his attempts to make me talk for even a second. And as he delivered his next dose of pain to me, I noticed something rather concerning.

A speck of purple fog.

And despite myself, I started to laugh.

It didn’t even matter, did it? I was done. There was no escaping. And the next time my mind started to break, I had no illusions that it would go the same way.

It was then that I finally resigned myself. There was no despair. No fear. Just an acceptance.

This is going to be the end for me, isn’t it?

I laughed and laughed, squeezing my eyes shut all while Warram grew audibly angrier, only intensifying his earlier efforts. Usually so very calm and collected, he started to shout, his words completely washed away as I cackled.

And then.

All at once.

The shouting stopped.

Curious, I opened my eyes to see what he was up to. It was a mistake, as the only thing I learned was that my brain was broken. Perhaps it had been that strange mixture of pain and laughter and resignation, but now there was something undeniably wrong with my head.

After all, how else was I supposed to explain what I was seeing?

There stood Warram. Same position he’d been in previously. Arm raised, new torture instrument only inches away from me.

Altogether, exactly what I’d been expecting to see, save for one important detail.

There, at his neck, was a thin spike of metal.

Or to be more precise, it was there in his neck, an inch of the blade and a short handle jutting outwards.

Neat. Can daggers just do that now? Go around stabbing people on their own?

It was then that I became entirely certain that I was hallucinating, because the dagger did have a wielder. One moment there’d been nothing at all, the next, a person, gripping onto the blade.

And in particular, it was a person I knew couldn’t be here, the impossibility not stopping her from speaking to me.

“Huh, and I thought I had it bad these last few months. You look like shit.” An angular and perfectly sculpted face stared straight at me, uniformly dark as night save for a single blueish nose stud in the shape of a teardrop. It was a set of regal features that could only belong to one person.

Hallucination or not, the grand and royal Princess Calilah of Ftheran jerked her chin at the stabbed and frozen figure of Warram. Speaking as if this were nothing more but a pleasant afternoon excursion, she posed to me the best question anyone could have asked just then.

“Just to double check, but I can kill him, right?”

Even barely able to think straight, I knew what to do.

I nodded.