Chapter 272 |
Compared to some of the other shit I’d pulled in recent weeks, this was a simple ploy, a solution to the original problem. If the court sent in core muscle and got stomped, it made them look weak. Alternatively, if they sent in a scouting team that got locked in the boss room and torn to pieces, it made them look stupid.
It helped that we were up against monsters rather than humans, which was a refreshing change of pace. The monsters of Flauros could be nightmares, sure. A single lapse of attention during combat or scouting could spell instant death. What made them easier to deal with was their single-mindedness and uniformity. Every type of monster was different, but once you understood their core objective and mandated behaviors, it was easy enough to predict what they could do.
It helped that we were up against monsters rather than humans, which was a refreshing change of pace. The monsters of Flauros could be nightmares, sure. A single lapse of attention during combat or scouting could spell instant death. What made them easier to deal with was their single-mindedness and uniformity. Every type of monster was different, but once you understood their core objective and mandated behaviors, it was easy enough to predict what they could do.
Not so much with humans.
The greater issue was, we didn’t know shit about the ants. They had plenty of familiar Old World analogues to extrapolate from—the ones we’d seen behaved identically to fire ants—but making an assumption of a system monster based on the creature its inspiration stemmed from was a potentially fatal mistake.
Charlotte gave us an avenue of better observation and simultaneously pulled back the veil on what she could do.
Linking chains of mana loosened with an ethereal rattle as they fell away from my face and shuffled off the rest of me, landing with a clatter on the floor. Now that the chains were off and the curse was cast, I felt different. More apathetic. The closest comparison was probably when I first wore the mask. Nothing new, but what was far more interesting was how the curse affected my perception of myself.
“How does it look?” I asked Nick. Chiefly because despite going first, his appearance didn’t seem to change much. Some of the more striking aspects of his features had dulled, but beneath the lack of polish, he was still clearly the same person. Either the curse was less effective than I’d hoped, or one of my feats was allowing me to see straight through it.
“Who are you again?” Nick asked, scrunching up his face comically.
“Hilarious.”
Beside him, Julian whistled, looking me up and down. “Unbelievable.”
“Look alive Matt, Prince charming’s making a move.” Nick whispered conspiratorially, then grunted as Julien shoved him lightly.
“Just can’t handle the rare occasion he’s not the center of attention.” I shrugged, ignoring Nick and focusing on Julien.
“Hey!” Nick complained.
Unperturbed, Julien circled around me, hands behind his back. “It’s uncanny. You’re so… unassuming. Like a person I’d pass on the street and glance at out of the corner of my eye, only to never give them a second thought. The only reason I know who you are is because of context.”
It was like he was describing the person I used to be, before I accidentally staked my claim on a region.
“How do I look?” Lucas asked.
“Exactly the same as you always do.” Julien said, not missing a beat.
Before Lucas could rise to the bait, Charlotte stepped in. “This curse is unique because it tailors itself to the observer.” She put a hand to her chin, surveying her handiwork. “If Julian and a hexed monster were standing side-by-side—you’d see a human, while the monster sees another monster.”
“Hard rule?” I asked.
“Haven’t had a chance to test it extensively, though from what I’ve seen? Yes.”
“What about solitary hunters? Predators that avoid or prey on their own kind?”
The question stopped Charlotte short. From the way she cocked her head, she hadn’t considered the possibility before. Not surprising, considering how many curses she’d probably accumulated by this point. Charlotte pulled up her UI, sifting through the description before coming back with an answer. “Unclear. Dammit. The descriptions are always so oblique.”
“You’ve never used this on a boss before?”
Charlotte scrunched up her face. “There was a group of Gnolls—which from a distance appeared to have some sort of dominance hierarchy—”
“—They do,” I confirmed.
She nodded thoughtfully. “I hexed their chieftain. Once he was hexed, the pack ignored him. Not right away, of course, but the longer the curse stayed in place the less deference the pack showed him.”
Julien’s eyes widened. “That’s what you just cast on us? That hex from the barrens?” When Charlotte confirmed it was, he grimaced. “A little warning would have been nice.”
I’d gotten the sense that Charlotte was hiding something, when she’d excitedly explained how the Indespectus curse functioned. Because from the way she told it, it had nothing but benefits. I’d intended to push her on the topic once we were locked in, but from the looks of it, Nick and Julien would do that for me.
Nick blinked several times as he looked between the princess and prince. “He’s freaking out. I’ve heard you guys talk about the barrens.” He pointed to still slack-jawed Julien, then pivoted to Charlotte, who was grimacing. “You look like you just got your hand caught in the non-vegan cookie jar.”
“I’m vegetarian. Not vegan.” Charlotte argued, in the way people argue over something unrelated to belabor a point.
“Same difference.” Nick waved her off. “Problem is, all I know about the barrens is that they’re a terrible place for people with coulrophobia, and that mentioning them is a great way to get the two of you to shut down.” He shifted towards Charlotte and took a single step into her personal space, his expression friendly. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go into this with as much sense of the situation as possible.”
I had to respect it. I almost always pushed too hard when there was a possibility of critical information at play. While this approach worked to keep the subject off-balance, it often created a hostile environment difficult to deescalate from. Nick’s aw-shucks mentality allowed him to achieve the same results with minimal enmity. Not realistically achievable for an introvert like me, but something I could learn from.
Charlotte blushed furiously at Nick’s proximity, glancing everywhere but directly at him as he waited patiently.
Definitely not something I could achieve.
The princess swallowed. “I wasn’t—uh—hiding anything. Assuming the scouting is done in less than six hours, which realistically, it should be, the floor isn’t that large, there shouldn’t be any problems.”
Nick smiled, nodding acknowledgement. “Great. Maybe I’m just anal-retentive, or it’s this guy’s influence,” He chucked a thumb at me, “But I like to know what sort of timetable I’m working with. It’s really helpful.”
“Definitely a luxury these days.” I added.
“I don’t get a lot of chances to contribute,” Charlotte breathed. “Curses work slowly, and so far, at least, we’ve steamrolled over almost everything really fast. I’m just trying to help.”
With a motion that was almost obscenely suave, Nick reached out and gently tipped Charlotte’s head upward, prompting her to look at him. Nauseating, but from the star-struck expression and red cheeks, clearly not to her. “You’re a big help. Your specialization is better suited to large-scale threats, the really scary shit. Makes me feel better just knowing we have you on our side.” He grew serious, still maintaining the charming facade. “But power is a double-edged sword. We have to wield it responsibly.”
Way, way too much. Jesus Christ, Nick. You’re going to kill her.
I’d identified Charlotte as kin almost immediately. A fellow studious introvert. As such, she was not prepared for the sort of nuclear shit Nick was throwing her way. If cartoon-style steam started pouring out of her ears, it wouldn’t be a surprise.
To Charlotte’s credit, she didn’t short circuit as I’d expected. Instead, she took a step back and seemed to take a deep breath, steadying herself. “Uh. Okay, it won’t apply to this situation—again I wasn’t hiding it—but I get wanting to know all the details. So, the barrens. It was supposed to be a routine clear. In-line with the sort of softballs the order was tossing us early on to help the court level with minimal risk. The report from the survey team counted twenty Gnolls. A few captains and some special mobs, but nothing particularly powerful, and despite fewer numbers the initial team cleared the dungeon with no incident and okayed it for court assignment.”
“Guessing it didn’t go down that way?” I prompted, giving Charlotte an escape from Nick’s perpetual smolder.
She shook her head, grateful to have someone else to focus on. “No, it really didn’t. System barred the door behind us by the time we realized the count was closer to fifty. Far more organized than the reports implied. To make matters worse, they all reported to a chieftain, one apparently strong enough that even our assigned reconnaissance specialist couldn’t see his level.”
I frowned. “One hell of a disparity.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“To this day we’re still not sure what happened.” Julien added. “The Order questioned the survey team after the fact, and despite considerable pressure, they swore they were thorough and that original reports were accurate.” He paused thoughtfully. “It’s almost like the dungeon just… changed.”
I weighed the pro’s and con’s of filling in the blank for them. On one hand, even acknowledging the existence of the Adaptive Dungeon increased the likelihood that someone else would find it. On the other, I had the only key, and considering what happened on my last foray, had very little interest in returning. After a moment, I decided the risks were minimal and sharing would only raise my perceived value.
“I’ve heard from a reputable source that there’s a variant of dungeon that scales.”
Julien’s head whipped around. “Wait, what?”
“Scales based on level, or number of Users?” Charlotte asked, leaning forward.
“Both. It adjusts initially, based on party count and level, tailoring the rewards. Resets after. Sounds like you might have encountered something similar.” I said, trying to bring the attention back to them.
“Suppose so.” Julien mused. “Either that, or the system was intentionally out to screw us.”
“Also completely possible.” Nick muttered.
Julien shuddered again. “Like Charlotte said. She hexed the chieftain, and for a while, it worked great. We kept an eye on him as he ran from scruffy a to scruffy z, trying to get anyone to listen to him, acknowledge his authority and presence, whatever. And then things got weird.”
“Weird how?” I asked.
Charlotte breathed out a long breath. “Keep in mind this was over the period of several days. Before we went in, I think we all still had a sense of things. That there was a Gnoll chieftain, and we needed to monitor and avoid. By the time we started to clear, we could barely remember what he looked like. But after we’d completed it, all we could remember were… the signs.”
“Scrawling on the wall in a language we couldn’t understand.” Julien filled in grimly. “First using the sort of tribal paint they wore on their faces, and later... written with other substances. And the writing wasn’t the end. We found a Gnoll with his throat slit, destroyed rooms. Eventually the chieftain must have lost his mind, because he started throwing shit. Tossing around furniture, buckets, even a few swords.”
Nick and I shared a glance. If I’d known all the details—well, I probably still would have signed up for it. There were risks to be sure. As long as Charlotte remained safe and safeguarded, the hex gave us a serious advantage. The fact that she’d withheld the details, though, and that she was still withholding them, gave us a point of leverage we simply hadn’t had before. As much as I wanted to hand-wave the slight away and act like it was no big deal, that simply wasn’t the play here.
“Jesus Christ.” I pressed a palm to my forehead and walked a few steps away.
“It’ll be fine.” Nick said, assuring Charlotte more than me.
“Yeah.” I hissed. “That’s what you always say.”
I used the awkward silence to think through my next steps. If I’m honest, I didn’t have a problem with the deceit or the potential downside of the spell. What I had a problem with was that Charlotte seemed like the wrong sort of person to hold the only key to undo the hex. She’d hidden the downsides out of a lack of self-worth and desperation to contribute. Even now, out of the corner of my eye, I could see the way a hand clenched at the front of her robe, bunching up the fabric violently.
It occurred to me now, seeing them in this context, that I’d been thinking about the court all wrong. In my mind they were the system’s version of children of privilege, handed the keys to the kingdom with little care or oversight simply because of who they were.
In reality, they were closer to the golden goose. Show animals held in cushioned captivity. And no matter how you sliced it, a gilded pen was still a cage.
I waited.
Come on. Give me what I need to trust you with this. Show a spine.
Charlotte approached, though she maintained a respectful distance. “Reversing the hex is easy. It’s—”
Sensing she was about to give me an out—the opposite of what I wanted, I interrupted, intentionally misinterpreting her words. “And if something goes terribly wrong here at camp while we’re gone and it ends up taking you out of play?”
Charlotte winced, almost shrinking away before her expression hardened. “Look around.” She gestured to the bulk of the Users in the center. The bulk of the Order’s and Adventurer’s Guild Users were milling around. There was a sense of camaraderie among the group. It didn’t surprise me that the Adventurer’s Guild had warmed up to the Order, what was unexpected was that it appeared to be mutual. Everyone liked heroes, and everyone enjoyed the experience of being a hero, even if you were only following orders. Maybe that was all it was. No matter what the agenda or underlying motivations were, what the Order had done in my region was undeniably heroic.
Beyond the friendliness on display, the collective gear they wore was undeniably high tier. Just from where I was standing, there were dozens of sheathed weapons and worn armors that emitted a soft glow or odd sheen, a mark of Epic rarity or above.
With the Order’s shady head start and the Adventurer’s Guild’s connection to Kinsley, I was probably looking at the best equipped Users in the dome.
Slowly, I crossed my arms and faced her. “Yeah. They’re a tough bunch. Camp is probably safe. None of that matters if the only person who can undo this shit gets bored and wanders off.”
“Hey.” Charlotte moved, circling until she stood directly in front of me. “For one thing, I’ve been caught flatfooted one too many times to be the wandering off type. And even if I was, I take this responsibility seriously.”
There it is.
“Okay.”
“And for that matter—wait, what?”
“Sidebar.” I switched gears and moved out of earshot of the rest of the group, not giving her time to backpedal. “Hold anything back when we went over your curses?”
Charlotte blinked. “Some of the trivial and less powerful. Nothing of note. Why?”
Because of the way her nose was perfectly in proportion with her face. How everyone besides Julian was walking around with a full set of luggage under their optics, and Charlotte didn’t even have a shadow. The swell and natural glisten of her lips. All without a single blemish, frown-line, freckle, or mole. She was an LA 10 and a Dallas-does-not-exist. No matter how you looked at her, the beauty was uncanny. Maybe that was a side-effect of being a member of the court. But judging from the Dusk Knight’s grizzled visage, I was inclined to believe otherwise.
And the more I thought about it, the less comfortable it felt leaving Sae’s fate up to Hastur’s whims. After everything she’d been through, everything she’d contributed, I couldn’t just come back to her empty-handed. She deserved better than that.
“Anything cosmetic?”
The reaction and confirmation was instantaneous. Charlotte looked down, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. “I overdid it.”
She had, but only slightly.
“Not really. Just gathered from context.”
“Huh?”
I chucked a thumb at the rest of the room. “Most of us are out here looking like the walking dead, while you could have walked off the set of some CW network post-apocalypse.” When she said nothing in response, I tried to soften the commentary. “Just seeing the group with fresh eyes. Guessing no one else has noticed.”
“And what do you intend to do with that information?”
No matter how tactful I tried to be in negotiations, people always ended up zeroing in on the blackmail conclusion. “Find out more and make a business arrangement, if possible. Assuming the hex isn’t fleetingly temporary or exclusively self-cast.”
“For you?” She looked up curiously.
“God no. Not my bag.” I chuckled self-deprecatingly. My looks and appearance even post system changes were decidedly average, and despite that I was still getting far more attention than I wanted. “Rather not talk details out in the open, but… a friend of mine has an ongoing dysphoria thing. I owe her a lot, so…”
Charlotte chewed her lip. “Sculpere could work for that. But a hex is still a curse by nature. It takes multiple applications to get right and… the process is painful.”
I paused. “Like, break every finger one at a time painful or could drive a person insane painful?”
“Depends on the extent of the changes.”
Realistically, it wasn’t a full replacement for Hastur’s potion, then. But I was pretty sure Sae wouldn’t mind if we did this piecemeal.
“And if the changes were focused around the face?”
Couldn’t say for certain, but I was pretty sure it was the compound eyes that gave Sae the most trouble. Mandibles being a close second. With Iris’s more recent, functional adjustments, Sae’s chitinous body held a convincing human form and could easily pass as slick armor. But the eyes made sunglasses in public entirely mandatory. And while that worked in a pinch, it was a ticking clock until they got unseated in a critical moment.
“Should be manageable.” Charlotte confirmed. Then, hesitantly. “And if I do this…”
The groan was reflexive. For once, I didn’t bother holding it in. “What, I won’t out you for being the most attractive person in the room? Just—If you help my friend out, I’m going to pay you. If you don’t, I won’t.”
“Oh.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It would be nice to have a legitimate excuse to get away from the court. Especially legitimate because I’d be making inroads with a new ally.” Charlotte mused. “It’ll probably take a few hours at least. Factoring in the time and components, knocking off a bit because it seems to be for a good cause… twenty-five thousand selve?”
It took all the self-control in the world to not immediately jump on the offer. Weird as it was to say considering where I came from, twenty-five-k was nothing to me, even less to the merchant’s guild. I was all but certain Kinsley spent at least that on her monthly allotment of white truffle lobster Mac-and-cheese. It was an extreme lowball, and I was pretty sure Charlotte was only offering the service at that price because she was relieved not to have another foot on her neck. If she had any self-awareness at all, she’d realize that eventually, which created space for resentment to grow.
“Make it fifty thousand and we have a deal.”
“Done,” Charlotte said automatically. Then paused, confused. “Wait—”
“It’s a complicated case, and I don’t want you to feel like I fleeced you after the fact.” I stuck my hands in my pockets and turned back towards the group.
“Just, off-record for a second.” Charlotte called out to me. More than anything else, she looked ashamed.
“What, too low?”
“No. The offer is more than generous. But… you really don’t judge me for wasting slots on something as trivial as appearance?”
“The fact you did works out great for me. Why would I?”
Only from the downtrodden expression that wasn’t what Charlotte wanted to hear. From what she’d implied, she’d used the hex on herself extensively. Extrapolating the introvert energy and lack of confidence, it was a safe bet she was less than thrilled with her previous appearance and still adjusting to the new one. And now she was looking for absolution from the one person who knew the truth.
It’s like despite being the most fucked up person here, I’m the only one who actually went to therapy.
I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “For one thing, my thoughts and judgements shouldn’t matter. I’m a guy. Relatively speaking, the only real societal expectation we have and can’t do anything about is being six feet tall. Compared to the pressure you and yours get on a daily basis, that’s a drop in the bucket.”
“You’re not that short.”
“Thanks.”
“Sorry.”
“Point being, I can’t know what it’s like.” I mused, trying to strike a balance between dismissive and thoughtful. “But self-doubt, self-loathing? The way the intrusive thoughts tend to crop up at the worst possible time? Those are things I can speak on definitively.” I glanced at her. “Any of that get better after your… adjustments?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Then it was worth it.”
I genuinely believed it was. Maybe speccing for vanity wasn’t exactly optimal, but eliminating anything that could distract you in the heat of the moment, even for a second, absolutely was. Charlotte would be a far better ally, teammate, and potentially, friend, if she wasn’t regularly splitting her focus outward and inward. That, at least, I could relate to.
She paused for a long moment and swiped at her eyes, then peered at me curiously. “So, you really think I’m the most attractive person here?”
“I have a girlfriend.”
Leaving Charlotte behind in an awkward retreat, I returned to Julien, Nick, and Lucas. From Nick’s shit-eating grin, he’d overheard my parting words at least. “My boy, melting the ice princess—” He grunted at my drive-by elbow in his gut.
“Let’s get this over with before we disappear.”
“Fucking finally.” Lucas rolled his eyes.
