NOVEL NEXT 98 - Gelias Thinks Something Is “Sus”
Gelias watched how Rory and Beatrice left the corner office without any concerns, and followed them, mimicking their motions.
The door clicked shut behind them, a strange and arcane automatic lock.
Once they were safely outside of the office, outside of earshot, Rory and Beatrice each stood on guard on each side of the door. He stepped forward, his back to them, as he scanned the corridors, which were silent and still, for any approaching Monsters. He didn't expect any; Monsters tended not to wander, and they'd cleared their way straight back.
"What's going on with you two?" he said.
"What do you mean, Gelias?" Rory said. "Does something feel wrong to you?"
"I feel fine," Beatrice said.
"It's odd to see you listen to Archmund without any pushback at all," Gelias said. "I would have expected a sarcastic quip or an insult or two back there."
He glanced back. For a half-second, a flash of confusion crossed their faces.
"I… well, look, even if he is my cousin, he's bound to have a few good ideas eventually," Beatrice said.
Rory nodded slowly. "It looks like we can resolve this without getting dragged into any stupid fights. Isn't that a good thing?"
"I'm going to scan you," Gelias said.
The two of them looked at him and shrugged, acquiescing.
Gelias's "scan" followed the same principle for living beings as it did for Gemstone artifacts: he ran his magic over them, letting it surge and flow, and his intuition interpreted the subtle shifts and distortions in the magical flux. Most humans lacked the ability to vent their magic into the world without a focal point or a catalyst, and that lack of acculturation meant that even if they did reach the vaunted Final Awakening, when they no longer needed outside Gems at all to use their abilities, they remained offense-oriented. In short, only very powerful mages could dump their magic into the world without using Gems as focal points, and if they directed it at other people it was as an attack.
His elven heritage made that completely irrelevant. He could vent his magic into the world freely, and yet it was just sort of there. He couldn't really use it as a weapon in the way that skilled humans could. He could flow his magic over people without trying to infect them with it.
His magic flowed over Rory and Beatrice, body and soul. They'd done this before, mainly as child's play, and they'd seen it as a personality test or fun little game back them.
They weren't acting like their usual selves, but that didn't mean they'd had their wills subverted like puppets. Gelias was more than aware that under stress, people could show sides of themselves they usually kept hidden.
His magic flowed over them, following the contours of their identity, their sense of being, where the magic flowed from them into the wider world. For Rory, much of his magic and identity was bound up in his Gemstone Quarterstaff; for Beatrice, her onyx tetrahedron. There were slight flickers in the usual pattern of Rory's flow, since he'd added a "lanyard", as Archmund called it, to his staff.
But the big, gaping difference was the Gemstone Keycards they both held near their waists. Like a giant rock thrown in the stream of their being, those Keycards were a vulnerability, a weakpoint that connected them to the hierarchy of the Dungeon.
He followed the paths of those weakpoints, afraid of what he might discover — that the Keycards had bored a gate straight into the deepest parts of their souls, which anyone with powers like him might be able to exploit — but he realized his fears were unfounded. Their magic and being was as well-defended as ever, even if the Keycards connected them to something outside themselves. It weakened them, without puppetting them.
Their behavior had changed, but it wasn't a malicious hijacking of their being. If he had to analogize, there were no punctures or welts or damages to their souls and spirits, but rather they had been bent out of shape like young branches in the hands of a forest warden: caving under the force of incredible superior pressure. The same principle that supported an impenetrable Bodily Barrier: if the defender's constitution far outstripped the attacker's strength, only extreme luck or technique could turn the tides of that fight, but if the attacker's strength exceeded the defender's constitution, the Bodily Barrier would shatter like a glass pane with a rock thrown through it.
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This was like that, but with whatever mental power Archmund had unlocked, that gave his words the immense power of suggestion. Pitting his charisma against their willpower.
And now that he'd seen it in them, he could see it in himself. Even if he was reluctant, he'd listened to Archmund's orders without question. The only difference was that he'd refused to take a Gemstone Keycard, and so his will hadn't been debuffed and made weak.
"There's," he said, unsure of what best to say. "There's nothing wrong with you."
Which was true, from a certain perspective. And it was close enough to keep things safe.
Their thoughts, their impulses, their choices remained their own. They fully believed that everything they did was of their own free will — and from a certain point of view, it was! Archmund's orders had been little more than suggestions, but said in such a tone of voice, with all the right inclinations and nuances and suggestions, that there could be no outcome but total compliance.
Gelias swallowed hard.
The door slid open, and Gelias whirled towards it, his hand jumping to his bow. But it was only Mary.
"Don't attack," was all she said. She waited expectantly, keeping the door open by leaning on it.
Gelias kept a hand on his bow.
He could see Archmund in the room, his face lit a pale blue that strangely enough seemed to come from the desk, not from the big windows behind them.
Soon enough, the other entrance to the waiting room opened.
Gelias's grip tightened around his bow.
He sucked in a breath as a pale, emaciated hand and shuffling footsteps entered the waiting room.
An Undead Clerk entered, its hands at its sides. It held no Gemstone Weapons, but only had a Gemstone Keycard hanging around its neck.
And then another Undead Clerk.
And another.
Beatrice stifled a yelp.
And then, once he'd mentally discounted his odds of taking them in a straight fight, three more.
And then even more.
Rory cursed under his breath.
Until it was up to twenty.
But they didn't attack. They stood in single-file line. Waiting.
"Come on in," Mary said. She smiled, though her face was still pale.
"Just three!" Archmund called. "But our party can come in too."
Three Monsters shuffled into the office.
With glances at each other, the three nobles followed them.
"That's your communicator, isn't it?" Rory asked when he returned into the room.
Archmund glanced at the Gemstone Tablet. "Yes. Yes it is," he said. He had kind of been hoping Rory had forgotten about it.
"Very versatile communicator," Gelias said, "if it's capable of communicating with a Dungeon."
"Gelias, Rory," Archmund said. "I want to pick your brain. How does Amalgamation work?"
"It's not understood well formally," Gelias said. "In fact, what scholars refer to as Amalgamation may be a few different processes that appear superficially similar to the living eye. Through one means or another, one Monster takes in the essence of another, becoming stronger as a result."
"I see," Archmund said, rubbing his chin. "Rory?"
"I've just heard legends and stories. The only time I've seen it was when… those horses ate each other," Rory said. "But I also noticed that some of the Gems got bites taken out of them."
Archmund leaned back in his chair. "Right. I remember that."
He looked at his gear. His Gemstone Sword and Gemstone Rapier, his Gems, his Tablet, the lanyards he'd collected. He wasn't going to feed any of those to some random Monsters.
"And when they Amalgamate, they end up harder to kill," Rory continued. "Which… well, you remember what it took."
Archmund did indeed. And he'd seen another example: when the Ghost of All Granavale condensed from dispersed miasma, one entity emerging from a dispersed many. Regardless, the governing principle seemed deathly simple: fusing Monsters together would make them stronger, and grant stronger loot as well.
He looked upon his Gemstone Tablet and poked and prodded at the screens. He'd managed to unlock a "Monster Control" tab, which he'd used to summon Monsters to their location. He hadn't been stupid, of course, which was why he'd brought them to two rooms away; and when they didn't break in trying to murder Rory, Gelias, and Beatrice, he'd let them in; and when they'd remained similarly docile, he'd let all 20 file in.
But he hadn't tested whether Amalgamation would break their tranquility, so he only allowed 3 into his office.
"It looks like you're trying to control specific entities!" Gemmy said. "Would you like to switch to a graphical map-based view?"
Archmund grit his teeth and listened to the stupid assistant while trying to not make it seem like he was hearing voices.
He could see the three Undead Clerks as dark spots represented in his office, and twenty or so others outside. He could also see dots representing Rory, Gelias, Beatrice, Mary, and himself. If he poked the Undead Clerks' dots, a menu popped up with contextual instructions. If he poked his friends, nothing. If he poked himself…
A menu that he couldn't comprehend.
So he turned his attention back to the Undead Clerks.
Clerk 1: Stat total: 63
Clerk 2: Stat total: 38
Clerk 3: Stat total: 45
He tapped Clerk 1 and directed it to eat Clerk 3.
Clerk 1 opened its mouth, stretching it like elastic.
Clerk 3 stood unmoving. It did not resist.
Clerk 1 stretched its mouth over Clerk 3's head. In one smooth, unbiting motion, it slid its mouth over Clerk 3's throat, like the maw of a lamprey, gliding down the torso.
Then it snapped back to its normal shape, its neck retracting.
For a brief second, there was the shape of a man in Clerk 1's belly, a mess of inert limbs, lying in wait. Already dead, but now even more like a corpse in a grave, or a mummy in wrappers.
And Clerk 1 stood there unmoving, unreacting, undisturbed. As if this was just part of the job.
And then, like a trick of the light, Clerk 3 was gone. No trace remained, not even a gorge of the belly. Clerk 3 blinked out, like it never was.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Rory muttered.