Dungeon Life

Chapter Two-Hundred Sixty-One

“Is everything ok, Boss?” tensely asks Teemo from Rocky’s shoulder, even as I watch the Raven glide off through the wall without even a ripple. It’s a bit weird seeing through their eyes, especially since they don’t seem able to notice the big bird.

I… maybe? I think he wants to just talk? I think if he was here to take me, he wouldn’t really bother with a chat first, or ask to meet at the field hospital.

“The field hospital? Why?” echoes Teemo, and Rocky puts up his dukes.

I don’t think he’s here for a fight, and I think a fight would go pretty poorly for us. The more I think about it, the more I think he just wants to talk. Maybe about Murphy’s Law? I imagine there’s a lot fewer deaths today than he was expecting.

I can still feel Teemo’s uncertainty at that, but he accepts and pats Rocky’s ear. “Easy, Rock. I think the Boss is right. If the Raven wanted a fight, we’d know it by now. You guys check on the cultists and make sure they can’t cause any trouble, alright? I’m gonna go meet the VIP.”

Rocky grunts unhappily, but doesn’t argue as Teemo makes a shortcut. “How bad do you think it’ll be, Boss?”

I honestly don’t know. He didn’t seem upset. He might have even been happy? He started talking to me before someone I couldn’t see seemed to get mad he wasn’t talking to you instead.

“Why would he talk to me?” asks my Voice, and my mental smirk gets him to put two and two together without me needing to spell it out. He facepalms once he gets it. “Right, talking for you is kinda my job. I didn’t think even the Raven would have to stick to that.”

I mentally shrug. I guess even gods have to follow the rules.

“Speaking of gods, what are you going to do about him? You’ve been pretty set on keeping a polite distance with even the Shield.”

Oh. Uh… do you think it’s too late to ask him to make an appointment for a later date?

This time Teemo gets to smirk. “You want an official appointment with death?” I blanch at the idea, and Teemo chuckles as we near the hospital.

Think we could just sneak away?

“I seriously doubt it, Boss. Also: are you actually more worried about him being a god than being death?”

Would you be surprised if I said yes?

Teemo shakes his head at me as he pops back into ordinary space, just outside the field hospital. The Magmyrm are still busily bringing in the wounded and occasionally the deceased, but Teemo has no trouble maneuvering between all the moving legs. He waves at Queen and Thing, but I don’t know if they even notice him, since they both seem to be busy with the business of saving lives. It’s not difficult for Teemo to spot the Raven, as he’s perched on a cot at the head of a covered body.

“He really does look a lot like Poe, huh,” comments Teemo before scurrying over to perch at the opposite end of the cot. He meets the Raven’s eyes for a few moments as tension builds, before my Voice shrugs and holds out a hand. “I’m Teemo, Voice of Thedeim. He said you wanted to talk?”

The Raven quietly caws in a chuckle and holds out a wing, bringing a primary feather in reach for Teemo to shake. “I’m glad I’m not the only one uncertain how to start.”

Teemo shrugs again. “The Boss likes me to try to keep him grounded, so I don’t really do pomp and circumstance.”

“It is refreshing,” admits the avianication of death. He preens for a moment, looking like he’s gathering his thoughts, before he speaks again. “Do you know what it is to be a god?”

I’ve been trying very hard to not think about it.

Teemo snorts. “He’s been trying to stay out of that kind of thing.”

The Raven caws a short laugh at my expense. “For someone trying to avoid it, he’s been checking off the list at a remarkable pace!”

There’s a list?

“There’s a list?” echoes Teemo, just as confused as I am.

The Raven nods. “There is, though it’s not one that’s been explicitly stated. We’ve simply come to recognize certain commonalities as the pantheons grow and shrink.”

“And you said the Boss is checking them off?”

He nods again. “He has. A certain level of power is simple enough, though the threshold seems to be lower than most would expect. Having followers is another, though they don’t need to be so organized as to have a High Priestess. Many leaders qualify for that prerequisite, as their followers believe in them and their ideals, even if they don’t necessarily deify the leader. There are other requirements besides, but they’re simple enough that many mortals can qualify for them. But you’ve also ticked a few boxes that are not so simple.”

Teemo glances to the side as we try to share a look, the Raven giving us a moment to consider the implications. “...like what?”

“A great working of mana in your name, for one. You may have literally given the name to someone else, but Murphey’s Law is all Thedeim. The vague concept has existed for as long as conflicts have, but none have understood and wielded it as you have before. You have also necessitated divine intervention, no matter how unintentional or minor.”

The Raven chuckles and glances to empty space. “No, I’m not putting your work down. You’ve admitted it was a simple fix.”

“A fix?” asks Teemo, the Raven fixing a considering eye on him before speaking.

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“Using libraries as signs to communicate before having a Voice. Not deliberately disruptive, and not difficult to fix, but it still seems to have counted.”

“Why ‘seems to’? And… I mean, not to be rude, but why you? Why now? Yvonne says you’re usually pretty busy, way too busy to have a chat with a weird dungeon with a rat for a Voice.”

“No objections to being called weird?” asks the Raven, and I can feel him somehow meeting my gaze through Teemo. “Hmm. Well, to clarify: yes, I usually am far too busy to simply have a chat, as you put it. However, I was expecting a lot more work to be had here today.” He pauses and nibbles at the bridge of a wing for a moment. “Maybe that counted, instead of the libraries?” He shakes his head and returns his focus to Teemo.

“Either way, now is a time where I find I have less work than expected. As for why me… well, it’s my work that requires this conversation.”

“...Boss says he’s sorry about messing with your quotas, but he’s not sorry about saving people.”

The Raven caws in laughter again. “No, I imagine you’re not! Tell me, are you aware of what my duties entail?”

You’re the Reaper… you guide the dead where they need to go.

“You take the dead to where they’re supposed to be.”

The Raven nods. “I do. Across the pantheons, I deliver the souls of the departed where they must go: to their afterlife. Do you know what that entails?”

Uh…

“Not really?”

The Raven tilts his head in a smile. “Most mortals focus on what the experience of their promised afterlife will be. The Goldenplume, for example, promises to warm and protect the eggs that are her followers until they hatch. She will feed them what bitter truths they can handle, that they can grow, until they must be pushed from her nest. They will either take flight to whatever lies beyond, or fall back to the cycle of life and death, to gain more perspective, more understanding, more ability to accept the truths she offers and grow from them”

Reincarnation, but also with an out?

Teemo seems thoughtful before responding. “What lies beyond?”

The Raven stares right at me for a few moments before answering. “I don’t know. I’m the god of death, not of the dead. Once they are where they should be, I have little power over them. So, where do you think I took the followers of the Maw, Thedeim and Teemo?”

“To the Maw?”

They certainly worshiped it, and with all the weirdness of the least and the Harbinger, I bet it qualified for those other checkboxes.

The Raven shakes his head. “No. The Maw lacked a single requirement, as I understand them. You also lack a single requirement, Thedeim, though a different one.”

Wait, what? What?!

“What requirement did the Maw lack?” asks Teemo, taking the situation a bit better than I am.

The Raven smirks. “It was not where the souls of its followers belonged. It probably would have tried to eat them. Of all the requirements, this is the one I understand the least. I understand the truth of where souls belong, but I don’t know exactly how it’s determined.”

I start to calm down a little at that as Teemo voices my reasoning. “So… you’re telling the Boss he’s not where his followers belong yet? I guess to try to help him be better?”

The Raven caws in a chuckle and shakes his head. Teemo’s eyes widen as wisps of orange slowly take shape around us. They start as just little clouds, but eventually resolve into the forms of… of my fallen dwellers. “No. That’s not the requisite he’s missing. They belong with him. It’s the first time I’ve seen this not be the final step, but it does seem to be one that truly starts apotheosis.”

My calming concern shoots right up just shy of blind panic at that. My fallen dwellers look glad to hear they belong with me, and though that gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling, the weight of that responsibility threatens to crush it and me.

The voice of the Raven feels like it pierces my very soul as he continues. “The prerequisite you are missing… is to define yourself. The Maw was insatiable. The Shield is a protector. The Goldenplume is a loving parent. I am a courier. What are you?”

His gaze and his question leave me… I’m not sure how to describe it. I can still feel the panic, the pressure, even the warm fuzziness, but it’s all a bit muted as his question demands an answer.

What am I?

Honestly, it’s a question I never really bothered to ask, even back on Earth. I never really saw the point, because I never could accept a singular answer. But it’s a pretty big question. I’m pretty sure midlife and existential crises stem from trying to find an answer to it. There’s been answers that sometimes seemed to fit, but never for long. I was a kid. I was a grown-up. I was lonely. I was a friend. I was a student. I was an engineer. I was a gamer. I was a nerd. I’m a Christian. That’s a lot, but that’s still not quite me.

Am I a drifter? I tend to roll with the punches pretty well. But I’m also a dungeon now, and a dungeon drifter just sounds wrong. What else am I? Am I potential? If I claimed that, I think I’d also have to be pretentious. I look at my emotions, taking advantage of the weird disconnect the Raven has me in right now, wondering if answers might lay there.

Am I scared? Well yeah. I’m a lot of things, but I like to think stupid isn’t one of them. I’ve never minded being a group leader, but it was always as a first among peers at most. Now I’m supposed to help prepare these people, these people who trust me deep enough that the Raven says I’m where they belong? I don’t know how to prepare them! I don’t even know what I’m supposed to prepare them for!

Who else?

Even with the disconnect I’m feeling right now, the thought hits me hard. I remember Teemo being worried about negotiating with the Southwood, not wanting to mess it up. There’s been a lot of times where that simple question has helped cut away the nonsense, the fluff, all the unnecessary things and reveal the simple truth: who else?

When faced with a difficulty, who else is going to deal with it? From a spilled drink to a wrecked car, am I going to just foist the unpleasant situation on someone else? Who else was going to help Hullbreak? Who else was going to stop the Maw? Maybe someone else, I can’t know everything, but I didn’t see anyone else able to step up.

And… after seeing my fallen dwellers, who else would I trust to try to help them? I can think of one, but He might already be on it. When asking why He doesn’t do something, consider the possibility He already did, by making you.

That doesn’t exactly relieve the pressure… but I tend to do pretty well under it. So… what am I? Well, I’m feeling a bit better about all this, but that’s a how, not a what. I keep trying to figure it out, but I’m drawing a blank!

Alright… get out of your head and look around you. What am I? What does everyone say I am? Well, weird. I’ve never taken being called weird as an insult. It beats being boring, right? What else? Well, I’ve definitely flipped the table on a lot of peoples’ understanding of a lot of things.

Am I chaos? It could certainly fit. Human history is full of chaos: wars, assassinations, genocides, famines, plagues, disasters…

But it doesn’t feel right. Some people thrive in chaos, but I just don’t accept that as humanity’s natural state. But… what is, then?

I realize it just as I feel something happening, the realization feeding into it, and the apotheosis feeding into the realization. Whatever the Raven was doing to muffle my emotions fades quickly, and though I’m still nervous about what’s happening, I try to embrace it. It’s weird. It’s new. It’s scary! It’s all that, and so much more.

There’s only one constant in life. It’s not going to be easy, but that’s also life, isn’t it? It’s not easy, but it’s less difficult once you accept it.

I am what all humans are. I am change.