Gamer Guild’s Dungeon (Planning, Revelations, and Introspection)

---

Darkness was all there was.

(Darkness was all there was.)

Peaceful, quiet, gentle, lifting.

(Raging, hateful, violent, drowning.)

No noise, no pain, no hate, no violence, no death.

(No sound, no feeling, no joy, no passion, no life.)

Eyes fluttered open, staring into the ocean of darkness, where there was no more need to fight, no more need to bleed, to hurt.

(Eyes shot open, gazing into the abyssal ocean, where horrors lurked speaking a language, of blood, madness, and violence.)

It’d be so easy to let eyes drift close and simply go to sleep in the gentle embrace of this kind Madness.

(Sleep would never come, devoured by the nightmarish embrace of this hungering insanity.)

Thoughts past and present ground against each other the disconnection between the beast’s gentle hell, and the Beast’s hugering abyss too different to reconcile, to accept until finally revelation tore through the mind pushing away scars of old in its light.

(But they are and aren’t the same… are they?)

Memories drifted to the Man in the Mask and to the Cheshire, an entity so mad, so insane, that a single identity could not contain its existence regardless of how calm and stable it pretended to be. And in much the same way a single name could not contain the full breadth of the entity, it could not contain the force the entity represented.

The world at large knew it as a singular form of Madness, those who touched it and in turn touched by it knew better, knew the difference between Madness and Insanity.

(Both reflection and reality smiled as their plaything finally began to understand.)

Madness was kind, creative, both giving and encouraging, always pushing for growth and change, for the life of something new, born from the efforts of the old.

Insanity was cruel, insightful, both hungry and manipulating, always seeking for evolution and transformation, for the death of something old, dying for the efforts of the new.

(They fed the revelation, wondering which face, which mask, their latest play thing would choose to wear for today’s dance.)

They were polar opposites, different but still the same force. They were two paths, competing for the same goal. Attracting each other, opposing each other, devouring each other and becoming something greater with each interaction, as the mad man danced with his own reflection having long since forgotten which was real and which was the distorted mask.

Revelation broke the mind, leaving it weary and exhausted as things stretched to their current limits before slowly snapping back into place, just a little bigger than before.

(They stood back, waiting in anticipation. Not at all worried about the damage they’d done to their play thing. Knowing full well that it’d survive and continue dancing to their beloved’s duet of life and death. After all…)

It’d be so east to let eyes drift close and simply go to sleep in the gentle embrace of this kind darkness, where there was no noise, no pain, no hate, no violence, (just peace and quiet.) Something he longed for so very very much… but… sadly…

(A Hunter Must Hunt.)

--- Jon ---

He shot out of the black waters of the corruption and spat it out of his mouth, so very thankful that whatever twisted copy of the Beast this dungeon had created couldn’t quite mimic the real thing’s corrupting influence.

(Probably can’t actually… corrupt anything… untouched by Madness…) That’d explain why it could mess with his head, but not go as deep as the real one could. (You never forget the feeling of fingers on your soul.)

He shook his head, before looking around the abyss in search of Pix. Someone he knew was both with him in this pocket dimension inside of a pocket dimension, as well as resistant to whatever Madness Manipulation the Fake Beast possessed due to having no direct Madness exposure like him and Ying.

“Pix!” He called into the darkness, his voice having a slight warble that he couldn’t figure out if he was responsible for or if the abyss was.

Getting no response, he was half tempted to try summoning Pix to his side, but that would require dismissing Wolf -(who I’ve got no idea how she’s doing with this mess)- and he wasn’t sure that was a good idea with him in a separate pocket dimension, and her in another dimension from the one he summoned her to. Last thing he wanted was to trap her in a third pocket dimension, because (spacial magic is finicky like that.)

Instead he tried pushing his (disturbingly low) magic into the contract mark on his chest, and reached out through his bond with Pix poking and prodding their connection with the cool warmth of his magic as he used it to direct himself to wherever Pix had wound up while he was under.

Following the connection and trudging through the knee deep muck of the abyss he eventually spotted a faint light in the distance. “Pix!”

The light jumped before seemingly spinning in place and flying towards him so fast that he just barely made out the little fairy as she collided with him while carrying his pack half soaked in the muck.

(She must’ve tried pulling me out, and pulled it off by mistake.) He realized, holding the little fairy close as she nuzzled into his chest. “Shh, shh, there, there, it’s alright. I’m alright, my little light.”

Pix looked up at him, her eyes discolored and smudged from the tears and her clothes stained by the muck.

“I’m fine.” He assured her as she dove back into his chest. “Just took me a minute to get back to you is all.”

They stayed like that for a time, probably longer than was safe with everything else going on, but even if the world outside was burning (Pix needs me.)

Eventually the little fairy pulled away from while wiping at her eyes, before giving him a curious look and chirping as she waved at the space around them.

“Right, getting out of here is going to be a hat trick.” He admitted, already running through the different spells and enchantments he could work out in his head. (Especially since I don’t have anything pre-made to work with.)

He’d been slacking on stocking up the few scripts he knew or developing anything new in favor of reading his books and sparring with the girls, things that while he considered part of his peaceful life he perhaps overindulged in given how he was left under armed when he needed it.

Finally he remembered a spell script, or rather an enchantment, that while he hadn’t actually tried, he had glanced at it once or twice and gotten the basic idea behind the enchantment. (And if that actually works, and we take into account the fact that the beast was hurt more than usual by Pix’s light -probably a side effect of being a game construct- then theoretically…)

Nodding to himself he looked down at his little fairy, “Alright, I’ve got an idea but I’m going to need your help for a lot of it.”

Pix gave him a determined nod, not bothering to ask questions.

“Alright, then what I need you to do is take your illusions and…”

---

After an uncomfortable amount of time and a large amount of trial and error, they eventually managed to take Pix’s illusions and draw a large glowing circle filled with a number of shapes and patterns that, while meaning little to the untrained eye, should theoretically function as an overpowered light spell.

“You think you’ve got enough magic left to power this thing?” He asked once more now that they were nearly done, since they were both running low and neither of them were willing to trust any of the potions after they’d been dunked in the pool of (admittedly weak) corruption.

Pix nodded, her face scrunched up as she focused on holding such a detailed illusion.

He nodded back before giving the Spell Circuit another once over, because what they were doing was extremely dangerous if they messed it up, but he was hoping that since they were popping the bubble by pushing out it’d result in the space expanding rather than compressing like it did when you pressed in to pop it. Unfortunately this also meant that a big part of this plan involved relying on the fact that this space was made by Madness rather than Magic, and so hopefully it’d retain the trait that Madness was -physically- the most forgiving of the Deviant energies.

(No point in putting it off…) “Hit it.”

Pix’s light began to glow ever brighter as she forced her magic through the imaginary circuit, tracing it with her light and then overcharging it with even more magic in the hopes of triggering the spell despite a lack of physical markers.

Electricity sparked across the circuit, dancing as the energy decided whether or not to follow the instructions drawn out for them in light, before sinking into the circuit and-

---

The light was blinding even through closed eyes, but he felt that despite the pain, the fact that his back hit the hard cobblestone pavement was significantly better than hitting more of the abyss’s corrupting muck.

“Pix you alive?” He asked, a weak trill of confirmation his answer as he forced himself to sit up, his eyes adjusting to the sudden shift between too much darkness, too much light, and finally too much fog. (Still better than the dark of the abyss at least.)

Suddenly a weight tackled him to the ground, and it took all of his self control to accept the fact that the weight was licking his face and not attacking him.

“Good to see you too girl, was a bit worried about what happened to you when we got thrown through the portal.” He told Wolf running a calming hand through her fur.

“That makes one of us.” A voice cut in aggressively.

“Roxanne.” He nodded, understanding and accepting the gamer girl’s scowl. “Glad you’re still in one piece.”

“Yeah, no thanks to this one.” The teen scoffed, shifting an unconscious Ying on her back. “But now that you’re back maybe you can explain to me what the fuck is going on since neither of these two could, and that fucker seemed really interested in you.”

“Right.” He sighed, running a hand down his face as he felt Pix collapse onto his shoulder. “To make a long story short, Ying and I had a run in with a really nasty entity of Insanity, that left us both scarred and screwed up. Apparently while the dungeon was feeding on our Madness it was also collecting traces of that Insanity that at a certain point took over the final boss, corrupting it into a fake copy of the monster that messed us up. Unfortunately despite being fake it still has its old Madness Manipulation which is letting it screw with the dungeon and turning the other dungeon monsters into Corrupted.”

“That’s… that’s fucked.” Roxanne finally sighed, running a hand through her hair. “But stepping past your dungeon perma-ban, how exactly are we going to clean up this mess? Because even taking this seriously and removing my game limiters that monster seems to shrug off anything I throw at it.”

(Well, that explains how she beat Ying’s corrupted form.) “Because your powers are based on the GM’s Madness, the beast can twist it and turn it into its own attacks.” He explained, forcing himself onto his feet.

“Wonderful.” The madness user told him sarcastically.

“Well on the plus side, this version is weaker than the original version so we should be able to take him out fairly easily by comparison.” (At least we won’t need to make any soul bombs this time.)

“How is this thing going to be easier to take out?” Roxanne growled. “In case you haven’t noticed it, no sales me, your dragon girlfriend is out cold, and it kicked your ass the last time you fought it.”

“Since it’s a corrupted game construct, it’s also bound to the dungeon’s rules.” He pointed out. “Meaning when it’s HP hits zero it dies rather jumping corpses. If Pix’s zap was anything to go off of, it also has elemental weaknesses now since light hurts it far more than before. What’s more it can’t hurt us nearly as much as it used to, since the GM thankfully put safety limiters on the dungeon’s damage output.”

“How’d you figure that out?” The gamer teen frowned. “We try not to advertise the fact that the GM is giving everyone a handicap, since that would raise the gang’s threat level.”

“It’s pretty obvious once you’re familiar enough with your own injury scale.” He shrugged, before patting Pix’s head. “And thanks to Pix’s healing I’ve been able to handle a lot more damage than most, it’s actually been bugging me how soft the walls and stuff are when I’m thrown into them.”

Roxanne couldn’t help but blink at that. “That’s… huh…”

“Also, we might have a couple of other advantages depending on how the dungeon works on a more functional level.” He threw out, to further reassure her only to have his theory cut off.

“I wouldn’t count on things running normally.” Roxanne sighed, before gesturing towards Ying. “When I beat her bad enough to knock her out the dungeon should’ve evaced her out of here, but she’s still here meaning that… thing is messing with some of the system’s basic functions.”

“Meaning the GM can’t send in back up once she realizes something is wrong.” He frowned.

“Yeah, while I’m pretty sure the GM knows, I wouldn’t count on help right now.” Roxanne agreed with a grimace. “It also means that the exits are likely shut down until this thing is dealt with too, so just running away isn’t an option either.”

(Not that I’d run away in the middle of a Hunt.) “Given how we didn’t run into anyone else in here I’m guessing every dungeon group has their own little pocket dimension.” He figured, putting a couple of things together in his head.

Roxanne nodded. “Yeah, the Dungeon has multiple instances running at any given moment, with the GM managing the more intricate parts and using the tunnel system to buy time when she needs it.”

(Surprised she’s being so up front about all of this with an outsider to her gang.) He couldn’t help but note. (Then again I guess this isn’t really the time to be stingy with information. Still…) “That’s probably a good thing, since it means there’s a… distance between the dungeon and the GM’s wonderland that the beast’s corruption won’t be able to cross.”

“Well at least the last decade isn’t going down the drain.” Roxanne scoffed.

Suddenly he remembered something Kenny told him earlier. “Hey, do you know if the GM can avoid saving this boss’s data when we kill it? Because right now the Corruption is contained, but if it gets transferred to the main Wonderland like the other dungeon monsters…”

“Killing it would be giving it a free ride to the Wonderland even if it ends the Corruption here.” Roxanne groaned, seeing where he was going with this before seeming to think about it.

“Okay, there’s some good news on that front.” Roxanne eventually told him. “The GM technically doesn’t transfer the saves until we get to a loading area, though she’ll sometimes put it off until a floor is finished all together. Meaning if she’s noticed something has gone wrong, which I feel is a safe bet, then she probably hasn’t saved any of this corrupted file.”

“What about corruption to the lower floor then, because while it might’ve ended up pooling here I don’t doubt the other floors might’ve picked some up when we were passing through.” He admitted, feeling bad about that possibility since he’d actually liked a few of the dungeon monsters they’d encountered.

“I… don’t think that’ll be a serious problem, because my Madness powers still seem to affect the things this fucker has corrupted, so I’m pretty sure the GM can patch over anything that isn’t part of the core corruption.” Roxanne explained. “Though that still might make things weird for whoever runs these dungeons for the next few days.”

“You don’t think the GM will close the dungeon behind this?” He asked incredulously.

“Yeah, I don’t.” Roxanne chuckled dryly. “I also don’t think you understand how big this whole event really is, or why the city let’s us get away with it. One hacked game just isn’t enough to shut the whole thing down.”

“Don’t you realize how dangerous this thing is?!” He hissed, mind flashing back to (the dead rose from the darkness over and over again, unable to die no matter how badly beaten, battered, or broken they were or how many of them his blades cut through.)

“It’s a Madness Construct gone rogue that can corrupt the entire system if it’s not deleted.” Roxanne told him with a glare. “It’s also you and your girlfriend’s fault it's here, isn’t it?”

He winced because he couldn’t bring himself to deny it, before eventually sighing. “Yeah, it’s my fault which is why I’m going to clean this mess up.”

“And how exactly are you planning to do that?” The gamer teen scoffed. “Because even if it is bound to dungeon rules we’ve established the fact that it kicked your ass, I can’t hurt it, it can turn your girlfriend on us, and none of the kobolds can touch it either without risking corruption.”

That made him pause. “Where are the kobolds?”

Roxanne narrowed her eyes a little further before relenting and telling him, “They’re keeping an eye on the fucker as he tears through the city streets looking for us. The fact that they haven’t come back means either it found them and they’re dead, or we got lucky and it didn’t notice your grand escape from wherever it threw you.”

“Yeah, I’m… honestly not sure what to make of where it threw me.” (Because I very much doubt peaceful darkness is in any way my hell.)

“How’d you break out of that anyway?” Roxanne asked with a frown. “Might give us an alternative out of this mess if we can just escape and let the GM wipe this floor once we’re out.”

“Overloaded a light spell, since it was a darkness pocket dimension it made the whole thing pop.” He abbreviated with a shrug. “Honestly, it probably only worked because it was a madness dimension within a madness dimension. Trying to break one this size to get into reality would not work out well.”

“Damn.” Roxanne cursed. “Of course that’d be too easy.”

“On the flip side I’m pretty sure with that light weakness and a few tweaks that overloaded light spell will -hopefully- be enough to kill the beast.” He told her, trying to stay positive.

“Yeah, and that sounds just as easy as that escape plan, what’s the twist?” The gamer teen sighed.

“The tweaks change it from a blast area to more of a… circular trap.” He tried explaining.

“Meaning we have to lure the monster into the trap by being the bait.” Roxanne finished for him. “Just like in a video game.” Shaking her head the gamer teen gave him another look. “I’m also guessing this trick takes a while to charge up so we have to keep the boss distracted until it’s ready.”

“Yeah.” He grimaced, hating that his plan was that predictable to someone.

“You do realize that with Ying sleeping off her transformation sequence, and me being useless in a fight, that you’re the one who has to fight this thing.”

“Yeah.” He nodded with a little more steel. (Wouldn’t have it any other way.)

---

“Are you sure this is a good idea, boss?” Kenny asked as the kobold led him to the beast’s last known location.

“No, being anywhere near the beast -even a knock off- is never a good idea.” He could already feel the beast clawing for control once more, demanding he let the violence out and hunt the pretender down.

(Patience. You have a plan. Stick to it.) He told himself, while fighting back a growl.

He’d known his summer spent fighting the Beast and its Corrupted had left his mind… scarred, and that his time with both the Man in the Mask and the Cheshire -(as infuriating and painful as it was)- was the only thing that kept him semi-sane (if you can call it that) through the ordeal, while resisting the Beast’s influence.

Naively, he’d hoped that by ignoring it it’d just go away, that the beast in his head would just go to sleep and die like its origin. (But I guess ignoring your problems never helps does it?)

He rolled his shoulders before looking up at the moon that no longer left him wanting to kill something every time he saw it. (First that thing with Kenneth’s dad, and now this little rampage… Am I even going to be able to shake the beast if it takes over again?)

Intellectually, he knew the beast in his head was not actually connected to the Beast, but rather some kind of disassociation that kept him sane while fighting the corrupted and committing himself to a level of violence that sickened him. (But that’s the point isn’t it? The beast is the part of me that sickens myself. Given just a little more power, a little more tangibility because of the Beast’s corruption.)

The beast in his head paced inside his mind, waiting, watching, knowing. It’s impatient and agitated state a sign that he was growing ever closer to a source of Insanity as his own worsened.

(And of course if I can feel my own insanity…)

“Jon, heh-heh-heh…” The wind laughed, the beast’s corpse still nowhere to be seen. “I wasn’t expecting you to break free so soon. You always were one for exceeding my expectations.”

“Get out of here this isn’t going to be pretty.” He warned Kenny.

“I’m not just going to abandon you.” The kobold glared.

“I’m not expecting you to.” He assured the uncorrupted dungeon monster. “But I need you and the others to have everything ready when I get the beast in place.”

Kenny looked like he wanted to protest before shaking his head and scurrying away.

He inhaled and exhaled, feeling the world around him shake as the beast in the dungeon grew closer and the beast in his head thrashed about.

In the shaking of the world, he found an odd sense of calm as he couldn’t help but let his thoughts drifted back to his revelation of Madness and Insanity, two faces of the same entity, sharing the same goal despite seeking it in two very different manners.

His Madness was his willingness to use, fight, and bleed whatever he had to to protect what he cared about.

His Insanity was his willingness to kill, hunt, and slaughter whatever he had to to protect what was his pack.

No matter how much he fought it and disliked it, the beast was still a part of him, and as violent as it was, at the end of the day all it wanted to do was protect.

(The beast in his head stilled as the man stood in front of it.)

(Two masks for the same entity…)

(The beast stared as the cage in his head opened.)

He could accept that.

(The beast cautiously stepped out of the cage.)

After all of his experience with magic and madness, he knew there was a simple truth about him, one that transcended all of his doubts, confidence issues, and everything else. A revelation that hit just as hard as his realization of Madness and Insanity, yet tasted so much sweeter as he basked in it.

(Still cautious the beast made its way to the man.)

Because, be it an Insane Beast or a Mad Man-

(The man ran his fingers through the beast’s fur in acceptance.)

-he would still be a hunter of monsters.

"There you are Jon."