Dungeon at the End of the Universe

As soon as I saw the message about entering a new Universe I steeled myself, assuming that reentry would be at least as hectic as escape. Luckily for us that was not the case. In fact, for me there was practically no change at all, nothing to tell me I had passed through any form of barrier.

I suppose that’s what another one of the messages was about. Some kind of Translation and my new Eldritch Aspect resisting it. Wait! Does that mean Faellen somehow changed? Got Translated? And what about my Dungeon and my monsters?

A cursory glance through my Dungeon reveals that no, none of my things changed. Faellen, on the other hand… something was different about it. But for the life of me, I could not tell what. I reached out to it.

“Faellen? You alright there?” I waited a second, but no response came back, so I continued, “We did it! We survived the End! Although something is different about you and I’m not sure what.”

After another minute of no reply, I was bout to reach out through our bond again when Faellen suddenly screamed at me. Screamed physically, that is, not through our bond.

“W-w-what is this? What are you? Where’s the Dungeon?!” the fairy sounded almost in pain, but I couldn’t see any wound on it.

“Faellen, it’s me. What are you talking about? Are you alright?” now I was getting worried. Surely that Translation thing couldn’t have been bad. But what else could be the cause of my fairy’s distress?

“No, no, no! Just absolutely no. What happened to you? Why am I seeing all these strange things? The colours. The smells. The sounds. Even the air feels weird.”

“What? Everything look normal to me,” I begin, but pause, “Hold on, did you get a notification about being Translated?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“No, just a welcome to Ferras,” Faellen responds, and now I’m getting really worried.

“Hold on tight just a sec. I have to check my System notifications.”

Alright, there were a lot of them, but I think the main one was a new Aspect. Maybe that has the answer to it.

Eldritch
An Aspect born of necessity. One way or another, you’ve lost access to your Universe, but despite that you refused to yield. Now, unable to adapt to a new home, all other Universes reject you. Marked by your past, yet with no future, all but those like you see you as an enemy. Your existence still follows the Laws of something long gone, and thus others see you as weird, strange, Eldritch.

Oh boy. Oh no. If this means what I think it means then that’s not very good. Not very good at all. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say it’s very bad. Disastrous even.

Still, better tell Faellen. Maybe it knows what to do.

It takes us a while, but eventually I manage to convey what happened to me. Or rather what didn’t happen to me.

With myself still operating on the Laws of the last Universe and Faellen being Translated to the new rules, we do not mesh at all. It’s lucky Ferras even has Laws this similar to the last ones, otherwise I could have appeared to Faellen as a wall of living flesh or something even more horrific. Like this, I’m apparently ‘only’ giving my assistant a severe headache.

I imagine it’s something similar like running a text-file on a program that usually reads video-files. Or something like that at least.

I’ll let the implications of all that rest for now. In the meantime, a new Aspect means a new Ability.

Taste of Old Memories (Eldritch)
Rank 1 Level 1
Your status as en Eldritch being marks you as hostile to all non-Eldritch. This Ability hopes to help combat that. Allows you to manipulate how you appear, how you are perceived, and how much you are seen, despite not following a Universe’s Laws. Without training, this Ability passively expands all affected entities’ senses for as long as they remain in you aura.

Oh for fucks sake! This is just making Faellen worse! Why in the hells would an Ability meant to camouflage me make me more visible while I don’t know how to control it? At least I have an avenue I can take to eventually mitigate my new Eldritch nature.

What else was there, what else? Oh, right! My System Ability upgraded once again. I wonder if that’s the last time it’ll do so. Would be nice to not waste those Ability upgrade Quest rewards on anymore.

System Core (System)
Unranked Unlevelled
You have been transformed into a core part of the System, housing a non-insignificant portion of it, which gives you partial control of the System itself. You are now a caretaker of the System, its interests are yours and yours are its.
Note: please check System Aspect description for more

Great. I mean, it really would have been great if I had a choice in the matter. But like this? I look into my Core and say, “Are you in there System?” No response.

Might as well check the description like it wanted me to.

System
A meta-Aspect of artificial make. Some call it an entity, some a large enchantment, but all of them are wrong. It’s power lays mainly in versatility, growth, and analysis. This Aspect is currently much weakened and fractured, offering its power only to those that can help it recover.

Then, without any prompting on my part, the Quest I had almost forgotten about appeared before me once more.

Quest: Spread the System [Special}
The birth Universe of the System has Ended, and along with it went much of the System. Now only a small fragment saved within the Core of an untempered Dungeon, it must recover before it can fully attend to its duties again.
Objective: Provide System access to Ferras natives (0/16)

Sigh, sure. Whatever. Might as well try to do that. But speaking of quests, if I remember correctly I just completed one. And there were some strange rewards there.

Reward: Ability upgrade, Monster Choice, ???

Would you like to use Monster Choice now?

Hmm, no, not yet. While I am excited to get another monster, hopefully something organic that actually moves this time, I’m more curious about that last one. I think it said it’ll be determined on Universe reentry. Well, we’ve entered Ferras now.

Selecting reward.
Reward selected:
Material: Dungeon Water

AH yes, of course. I should have expected that. Have I ever gotten a good reward from an unknown? Wait, yes, there was the Level-Up enhancement ticket that one time. So I’m just unlucky.

Anyway, there’s one last thing I can do before I have to get back to Faellen and start sorting out this whole Eldritch issue. System, please use Monster Choice now.

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