Soulforged Dungeoneer

"I suppose I ought to thank you," said the Devil as he stepped off his throne. "Somehow... being gifted with newfound wisdom made me question my place in reality. But as you say, a devil cannot be trusted. Isn't that so?"

I looked at the creature: twelve feet tall, built like a truck, with horns on his head that started out like a bull's and then curved like a question mark until they pointed forwards, to match his eyes. Hairless, with an intense stare and pointed teeth, if I hadn't seem him crying I would think him incapable of it.

"It's hard not judge people for what they are," I replied. "If you do this job long enough, you'll see some dungeoneers who would be nice to you, but there won't be many. It's the same with us and monsters. A party wipe means death for good, and deception, puzzles, and traps are all to be expected in a dungeon. Blame your 'father' for putting you here, if you must, but even now, I'm not fully confident in being able to beat you if you do something sneaky."

The Devil pulled his massive sword after him a little limply, the tip dragging along the ground, as he stalked forward one pouty step at a time, like... someone suicidal, honestly. A feeling, again, that I knew all too well. "What crimes have I done?"

"Since waking up? Perhaps none. What about before that?"

The Devil stopped in place, and his face was warped by a look of concentration for a minute. He raised a red, clawed hand to his head and sighed. "Maybe you're right. I am a monster."

I squatted down, keeping my concentration in case I needed to dodge or attack, but otherwise just balancing on the balls of my feet. "I admit I have no idea what kind of leniency you have from the--from your father in terms of choosing your own actions. You could always hide and let people through, or do a number of other things. But when you were created as 'the Devil' you were assigned to fill a role that is brutal, violent, and cruel. If you want to convince people that you aren't playing that game, you have to understand that most people will refuse to believe it, and it has nothing to do with you. It's all about the myth you were created to mimic."

The Devil harrumphed and sat down on the floor in front of me. "What about you? What would it take for you to trust me?"

"To trust you?" I looked at him. I'd decided to talk to the devil, but... I shook my head. "I honestly don't know what you're capable of. Dungeons are places people go to die. But..." I squinted. He said... his wisdom was raised by 100, right? That was a phenomenally high score for any stat. If his strength went up by that much, I would have been screwed. "...we can start by you showing me your Card."

The Devil cocked his head and sat there for a minute. It was only the slight changes to his face and shifts of his eyes that convinced me he was looking at his own UI--whatever that was like for monsters--rather than wasting my time, but after a moment, a card popped up.

[ THE DEVIL ] - LV. 50+25 [ DEMON ] [ DEVIL ] [ LOST SOUL ]

[ STR 60+10 ] [ AGI 40+20 ] [ DEX 35+15 ] [ STM 80+5 ]

[ TGH 80+5 ] [ INT 30+50 ] [ PER 25+5 ] [ WIS 35+100 ]

[ MEM 35+10 ] [ WIL 30-5 ] [ AUR 30+10 ] [ RES 20-10 ]

[ TITLE: FATHER OF DEATH ]  [ TITLE: LOST SCION ] [ TITLE: SATAN'S VALET ]

"Satan's valet?"

"Well, occasionally I have tasks to perform, yes," demurred the Devil, looking away. "Little things. Moving things around. Minor repairs. It's not important."

I fell backwards from my squatting pose and stared at the stats. Assuming they were accurate, there were two obvious consequences here: With his low Will score and status as a "Lost Soul" I could probably use the halo to gain Leadership over him, which would not necessarily give me anything useful, but it would almost certainly work. "And Father of Death means... Death is your son, or you killed your children?"

"...a little bit of both? Do you not kill children in the mortal plane? If you don't like devils I can't imagine you would want my children growing up to be devils. But perhaps just the act of taking away something young is bad, here?" To his credit, the Devil seemed to be actively thinking about this in a way that was probably useful in the long term.

"Okay--actually, no, if you're just spawned into the dungeon, how can you have a history at all? Do those things even exist? Other devils, children?"

He looked at me, and blinked a few times, and sighed. "There is a... connection, filled with meaning, intuition, memories. Knowing that I am created, that my strength is manufactured... those connections may well be lies, but they exist, and they are all we have. If I am told that a devil is my child, and my child is told I am its father, then that is our relationship. If I refuse to be part of it, that does not change how they see me. In such a case... am I not the one who is wrong?"

"Okay, look, that's enough." Suddenly, the Administrator's avatar was standing there in all of his bespectacled, hawaiian shirted, beanpole glory. "This is all very amusing but I did not intend for you to use this opportunity to learn how dungeons work. You," he snapped his fingers at the Devil, "up. Come on."

The Devil was suddenly standing with his arms outstretched to the side, and then suddenly was back on his throne, relaxing there. His card, still visible, showed a sudden reduction in his Wisdom stat. The administrator turned to me. "No more of that. Fight or make a deal or whatever, but no questions like that."

And then he was gone, and I blinked in the sudden reversal of fortune.

"Ah, an adventurer. I--no." The Devil squinted. "I... know you."

There was a sound behind me like snapping fingers and the Devil reset again.

"Ah, an adventurer." The Devil stood up and reached to the side as though he expected his sword to be there, but no, it was still on the floor in front of me. "You--what--?"

"No, you know what, that's fine." I reached down and picked up the Devil's Sword and, although it was well outside of my ability to pick up by strength alone, I used telekinesis to pretend I had that power. "Let me return this." If his Wisdom was removed, and probably his memories of me... that meant this was just another normal Dungeon thing, right? I might as well just start the fight.

I appeared all of my telekinetic items and flung the Devil's own sword at his head as hard as I possibly could.

"SHIT!" There was a sound of cracking stone, but the Devil himself dodged the strike. Instead, the sword ended up sticking out of the lava fall behind his throne... and, uh, apparently it was real lava, or at least had real heat to it, because the sword started to glow and melt, and lava that had been held back suddenly started spilling all over the throne.

"Shit, my throne! What the hell is wrong with you?" The Devil, still twelve feet tall and muscled like the monster he was originally supposed to be, put his hands up to his face as he looked down at his chair. "Oh, crap, the potions!" He bent over and tried to pry at something I'd never noticed on the side of the throne, but his giant fingers apparently couldn't work the mechanism. "With the heat, they're going to--nonononononononono---!"

Suddenly, the Devil's throne exploded, and the explosion released clouds of noxious gas or acid or something that the Devil ended up waving at with his hands as though that would keep it from getting in his eyes and mouth--which it didn't. He gagged and reeled back, tears pouring out of his eyes, and he cried out, "It burns, it burns!" ineffectually.

And I just stood there, wondering exactly what the hell kind of Dungeon this was.

After the smoke cleared, the Devil went to examine the broken remains of his throne, and I stepped up behind him, watching lava pour into what was apparently a large hole in reality underneath the chair. I could only imagine the face of the Administrator, watching over this scene, but instead of stabbing the guy, just to be an asshole, I patted the Devil on the back and said, "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll fix it for you."

The Devil sniffled. "He's going to be so mad at me," he said, his voice full of worry.

"Why? It's not your fault. It's either his, or mine." I patted the Devil's back, again. "Don't worry about it. Things will be alright. Look, come on, stop crying. We'll fight, I'll kill you, and then everything will be reset. Okay?"

The Devil sniffled, nodding his head, as though what I said was a genuine relief.

As I moved back, and the Devil retrieved his half-molten sword, I was tempted to ask what was down there, but figured that wouldn't be allowed. After all, it's not like the hole was canonical--right? "That's a glitch, right? It's not supposed to be some kind of super magical toilet that we just blew the top off of?"

The Devil nodded, sadly, as he set the sword against the ground and tried to bend it back into shape. He got it so it looked a little better, but it was still... trash. It was a trash sword. It was a garbage-ass trash sword, and he knew it, and I saw him wanting to cry.

"Oh, jeez. Look, stop. Just turn around and close your eyes." And that's how I ended up just stabbing the Devil in the back of the head until he died, while he cried over his sword.

When he died, he dropped perhaps the most special piece of loot I'd ever seen. According to my inventory, the name of the item was "The Devil's Garbage-ass Trash Sword".

It was quite possibly the most stupid and the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.