“This note, which suddenly appeared in my hand, asks of me to treat you nicely,” she informed the girl. “It also disrupted my concentration, ruining my attempt at novel wizardry, which was frustrating enough that I’ve decided to complain, yet the most likely source of my frustration seems to have run away.” Lily kept avoiding her gaze. That was acceptable, since it made the girl easier to talk to, despite El’el’s wariness. After all, plenty of ‘control’ skills required eye contact. “The note also specifies that you’re not evil, which I find somewhat reassuring. It also indicates that you being not ‘evil’ is a matter of Dennis’ opinion, which I find slightly concerning.” Establishing all the facts was the foundation of clear communication. To be understood, one has to put effort into not being misunderstood. Such was the wisdom of the wise. “To complete the picture, the note also gives me another novel, albeit frustrating, challenge. I do not think that it is relevant to the point I am trying to communicate.”
Lily shifted in her seat, stubbornly looking down at the ground, reminding El’el of the times when younglings were being scolded.
“You forgot,” Lily muttered quietly after some time.
“I forgot?” El’el raised an eyebrow. The gesture went unseen, since the girl wasn’t looking at her at the moment, but body language was an essential part of communication, and it would be wrong to break a habit despite the pointlessness of the gesture right now. While her effort wasn’t appreciated, it wouldn’t stop her from making an effort.
“You forgot your point.”
“Ah.”
El’el felt warmth in her cheeks.
“R-right.” She pretended to cough, to hide her embarrassment. “Are you, or are you not, evil?”
“I–” The girl almost looked physically smaller. “I think I am.”
Not counting Dennis’ interruption, that unfortunately distracted her a bit too much from the matter, El’el didn’t stop trying to piece together the clues of what was ‘wrong’. And while Dennis forbade her from revealing the truth with wizardry, he didn’t forbid her from thinking.
Lily’s answer was tinted with self-doubt. The uncertainty of a person who wasn’t sure themselves and desperately wished to know the answer.
It was also a lie, one not made deliberately. A plea to be punished, and a belief that she deserved the consequences of her own actions.
It was an attempt to hasten the inevitable. A true belief that something ‘terrible’ was going to happen at the end of her admission, something so profoundly horrid and inescapable that she just wanted to be done with it.
It was, without a doubt, too much information gleaned from one quiet admission.
“Oh dear…” El’el whispered. “This is troubling, but I am starting to suspect it is for a different reason than you think.”
Lily was not a Truthsaying Saint, it was plainly impossible since she attempted to lie just right now, but the similarities in the effect of her skill was astonishing. At first, El’el suspected the worst, a ‘control’ skill of some kind, but her observations just didn’t fit that theory.
The clues, at this point, were abundant.
First, that she didn’t notice the influence. Even diminished as she was, a skill that targeted her specifically wouldn’t go unnoticed. It was possible that the control was so severe that she was forced to ignore the mental attack, but if it was, how could she still be suspicious? No control skill worth their salt would allow their thrall to be as ‘rebellious’ as she was. Whatever it was, she wasn’t the main target of the skill.
Second, the amount of knowledge freely shared. Lily bared her inner self to the world without reservation or restraint, which was one of the main reasons El’el had assumed that she had the Truthsaying Saint skill in the first place. That, and obviously the fact that everything the girl said was clearly true, at least when the girl herself believed that she was telling the truth. Control skills didn’t work like that. One who wished to control others would never allow themselves to share so much, or to be limited by their own beliefs.
Skills reflected people. They were a core part of someone’s identity. To know a person, it was usually enough just to ask what their skills were. It was also terribly, horribly rude to do so.
Lily’s skill couldn’t be a controlling one. Not directly, at least. It didn’t target El’el. It shared too much.
“I do not believe you,” she said simply, finally allowing herself to relax and sit on the bench next to the girl. Lily fidgeted in place.
“I can make you believe,” she said quietly, still refusing to lift her eyes.
El’el hummed, looking up at the sky.
It was such a curious statement. She can, but she will not – and for so many reasons, no less. Lily said with her silence more than she did with words. Her skill helped, bridging the gap in meaning despite the girl desperately wanting to drive El’el away.
It was a communication skill, targeted at the girl herself. One strong enough to mimic a control one.
“It seems that Dennis was wise in holding my hand,” she said, still looking at the sky. It had such a weird, blue color. The clouds were wrong. So much was unfamiliar. “And his inquiry about some theoretical spellcraft did allow me to clear my head. I wonder if such was his intention?”
“Doubt it,” Lily muttered. “Though… I’m not sure what’s going on in his head anymore. He was much more talkative when I… couldn’t reply.”
“You were aware of the time you were dead?”
“Wasn’t dead,” she replied. El’el could sense faint gratitude from the girl for changing the topic. “Technically. I’m not sure. As good as dead, anyway.”
Curious, but also… Yes, she was right. Troubling, indeed.
“You obey the effects of your own skill,” El’el stated plainly. “A rare thing, to have such a powerful drawback.”
“Can you stop–”
“I will not pry further,” she agreed quickly. “My teacher always told me to judge people by their intentions. Mistakes can be made, but if one’s aims are noble, then the person themselves is noble at heart. I do not believe that you are malicious, and so, there is only one statement that must be made.”
“What is it?” Finally, Lily glanced at her.
“I will forgive you.”
The girl froze.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I believe I do.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t just–” Lily turned fully to face her. She was alive now, animated, and so, so outraged at the mere idea that she could be forgiven. “You don’t know what I did! You don’t know what I can do! You don’t know anything! You can’t just– Things don’t work like that!”
El’el smiled.
“No, they do,” she said simply.
“You can’t just ‘nope’!” Lily shouted. “That’s not an argument!”
“I believe it is.”
“No, it isn’t!”
“Yes, it is.”
Lily fumed, lost for words.
“You’re worse than Dennis,” she finally settled on an accusation. “He, at least, cycles through his arguments.”
“A personal failing of his,” El’el nodded. “One doesn’t need to change their argument if it’s right.”
“So you just repeat the same thing until people agree with you?”
“Of course.”
Lily was silent for a moment, lost in thought.
“Does it work often?”
“Not really, no,” El’el admitted. “Some people are just too stubborn to see the truth, no matter how much I repeat it.”
Weirdly enough, despite all the magic of Lily’s skill, El’el couldn’t figure out the meaning of the look that the girl gave her.
/ - /
Dungeon cores were, obviously, big-ass round objects that looked like a pearl, or maybe a gem of some kind.
Right?
Apparently, no. He just assumed and wasted half a damn extra second looking for the thing.
While Heroic Senses accepted that he needed to destroy the core to save the fuckup-squad, the skill regrettably couldn’t be arsed to tell him where the thing was. Searching for it was Dennis’ problem. And he was too embarrassed to come back to ask how to find it after his cool-ass speedstery exit.
The deeper we go, the stronger the monsters.
How the flying fuck was he supposed to use monsters as a guide in superspeed?! They didn’t spawn fast enough!
The fucking dungeon was too slow to spawn them along his way, and since he refused to lose any cool points by coming back, he had to do it the hard way.
Yeah, he vacuumed the whole thing. Every room, every corridor, every hidden passage in the paintings.
Pretty much all hidden passages were in the paintings, which didn’t make them that hidden, honestly. Like, he was a bit lost at the beginning, but once he figured out the trick, it was child’s play.
Aside from having some creepy liminal-space architecture and way too much shitty art everywhere, the place was otherwise quite boring.
A few paint-monsters here and there, already pre-spawned, dealt with easily enough by just waving his sword at them hard enough. They gave decent exp, at least. Nothing game-changing for his level, but the fact that he noticed the exp gains at all was impressive on its own. He was getting used to having to slaughter thousands to feel any.
Anyway.
The sneaky, good for nothing, bitch of a dungeon core was a shitty painting in one of the rooms. He missed it twice, before remembering to listen closely to his magical senses.
It was basically a focus point of a skill place, and cutting the thing up into small pieces did the job.
The exp was… immense, relatively. With just this small act of vandalism, he got almost five percent closer to the next level on his imaginary exp meter, putting him up to about sixty.
Existing inside of a space as it shrank back to normal was weird. It wasn’t shrinking so much as… Well, the closest thing he could imagine to the sensation was a broken mirror, which had countless reflections, being mended back into a whole one. He was in one of the countless rooms, and then, he was just in an ordinary room.
Shit was weird. It was like someone was looking at the building with their eyes crossed, and then focused their gaze.
Good news from that was the fact that he wasn’t crushed by the collapsing space, or ejected into some out-of-space limbo. With his luck, it would've been right in the Echo.
Dennis took a deep breath, realizing only after the fact how troublesome the dungeon’s self-destruction could’ve been.
He met with the fuckup-group in the foyer. Without the space-warping, the building turned out to be as small as it looked from the outside.
“Yo,” he raised his hand as he saw them. “I killed the thing.”
He was met with wary glances, which was more or less how it usually went. The fear aura thing got annoying fast. Though, maybe they were just that impressed with his coolness?
“That you did,” one of them muttered anxiously. Bill or something?
“Thank you for your help, Dennis,” Mark said with a smile, demonstratively sheathing his daggers. For some reason, he was glaring at the other guy as he did so.
The other guy put away his rifle after a few seconds, grunting something Dennis couldn’t hear.
Eh, whatever.
“So, where’s Mary?” He asked, going to the exit. “I was kinda in the process of rescuing her.”
“Rescuing her from what?” the rifle guy asked. Mark stepped closer to him.
“You know, the spider-clowns? Or something? It feels kinda dangerous to just run off like that alone. Come on, you guys can drive us there, since you have a car and everything. Man, it’s going to be so weird to be in a car again.”
“No fuc–” Dennis couldn’t hear the end of the sentence, as it was stopped with a groan. He glanced back at the man and saw him clutching his ribs. Mark stood nearby, smiling kindly.
“Of course,” Mark said, with one hand resting on Daniel’s shoulder. “Would you mind answering a few questions on the way? I have to admit, we don’t really know much about you and there are… some… people who are a bit wary.”
Dennis shrugged.
“Sure.”
They walked to the car in silence. Mark got into the driver’s seat, and motioned Dennis to take a front one, beside him.
No one talked. Aside from Mark himself, who seemed to be halfway immune to the fear aura, everyone else was looking at him like he killed their babies.
It was…
It bothered him a bit.
He tried to ignore the feeling, shifting uncomfortably.
It shouldn’t bother him. He didn’t care.
Mark turned on the ignition and they were off.
AN: 2.5 Dimensional Seduction turned out to be amazing. Damn.