Alex blinked. He squinted up at the Keeper, trying to figure out if this was meant to be some sort of joke or a trick to get him off guard for the next monster's arrival, but no purple scars appeared in the air.
Keeper floated still in place and stared at him in wait for an answer. An answer as to how he'd apparently stolen from the literal System itself.
An answer that Alex didn't have. But, even if he did, he definitely wouldn't be going around sharing it with something that worked for said System.
Is he talking about how I got Aubrey's Soul Flame when I wasn't meant to?
"I have no clue what you're talking about," Alex said with a shake of his head. Even if the Soul Flame was what Keeper was talking about, he wasn't going to give any information up himself. The System didn't play nice and he wouldn't either.
"You must realize how unlikely that sounds. Are you implying that you managed to rob the System entirely by accident?"
"We can go with that, sure. I'm not so convinced I've robbed the System of anything. Isn't this a trial? I deserve rewards, but I haven't seen shit so far. That seems pretty damn cheap. If anything, I'm the one getting robbed right now."
Alex cast his gaze up to the glowing words that had been hovering in the darkness throughout the duration of the trial. He'd defeated all the crabs and taken out the monster that the System had turned Aubrey into, which meant his percentage should have been at least at 100%.
Town Potential: 125/100%
Wow, that's even better than I was thinking it would be at this point. Audrey was really worth quite a lot of percentage. I wonder if her choosing to transform into a monster to tell me the name of her group made the challenge rise higher than it was meant to. Guess I owe her one.
Keeper followed Alex's gaze.
"Over 100%," Keeper said, suddenly dropping their former topic of conversation. "You have achieved completion."
"What, no more monsters?" Alex's brow furrowed. He'd been saving up a lot of energy to make sure he could push all the way up to 200%. Stopping now just felt like a waste. "I never rung the bell. I'm not done."
"You have achieved the requirements to complete the trial."
"No, actually, I haven't," Alex pointed out. "I haven't died. The System specified that it would go until I died, did it not?"
I wonder if it told Aubrey the same thing. There's no way it gave us a trial that's guaranteed to end in us getting screwed over. I'm certain a way to win exists, but I need to find it.
"The trial world will collapse upon its conclusion and all living beings that remain within it will die."
"That doesn't sound particularly advantageous to my health," Alex said, his eyes narrowing. "Not sure I'm seeing how this benefits me."
"It is not my purpose to explain the full extent of how a trial dimension works. It is a very rare occurrence for an individual to partake in one, and the rewards of such a trial can be… extensive. The System harvests a small portion of your soul for the duration of this trial as collateral. That portion is forfeit, regardless of result. Should you fall early, the rest of your soul will be consumed as well. The farther you make it, the less impact to your whole being there will be — but a portion will always be lost."
You just said you didn't want to explain it. What is up with this guy? It almost feels like Keeper is trying to hit keywords for the System saying it isn't helping me while proceeding to do just that.
"Hold up," Alex said. "Are you telling me that part of my soul is guaranteed to die? There's nothing I can do about it?"
Keeper let out a long sigh. "Fresh initiates and their souls. Always so concerned about them. Your soul is the very essence of your being. The truest form of you. It is not so weak as the body. Losing a portion of it will sting, but it will recover."
Alex's eyes widened. "Wait. Then Aubrey—"
"Too early," Keeper said with a shake of its head. "She was not at the trial's completion. She is dead."
"How much damage to my soul can I even take safely? How do I know I'm not just going to show back up in my normal body completely brain-dead because the System fried my shit?"
"That is not how it works. You will only have difficulty if you attempt trials or damage your soul so constantly that it cannot heal."
"How constantly are we talking here?"
Keeper leveled a flat stare at Alex. "The trial is at completion."
"Great. I'm not." Alex cracked his neck and stretched his arms out. "I believe I told you what I was aiming for when I stepped into this room. I'm going for 200%. And if a bit of my soul is going to get killed no matter how things go, you better believe that I'm not fucking stopping until I'm dead. Literally."
Keeper's flat eye peered down at Alex. "At what point did you decide that you get to set the terms of this trial? There are no more monsters for you to face. It does not matter how many fights you wish to have when there is nothing left to fight."
"See, there's the thing." Alex clicked his tongue and lowered back into a fighting stance. "I can't help but feel like, if the trial was really just objectively finished, this space would have collapsed already. But it hasn't. That makes me think there's a bit more to it than what you're letting on."
"Standard procedure is to give notice before any dimensional collapses. You are over-reaching."
"Am I? Maybe I'd agree if I was actually alone and the trial was empty now… but I feel obligated to point out that I'm not actually alone. There's one more monster in here with me."
Keeper's lone eye narrowed. "You can't be serious."
The chainsword in Alex's hand whirred to life with a rumble. He could feel a vague sense of hunger emanating from the weapon. That may not have been the best of signs, but these were the worst of times. A little bit of bloodthirsty weaponry was far from his biggest problem.
"Dead serious, I'm afraid."
"I am an observer, but do not confuse my inaction for weakness. I am more than capable of defending myself."
"Are you trying to get me to attack you? I'd much prefer an opponent that fights back. Murdering someone in cold blood feels pretty evil. But if you're a combatant, then this is completely fair game."
"It is still attempted murder."
"No, it isn't. Not under any of the definitions."
Keeper tilted its head to the side. "What?"
"It really isn't that big of a stretch," Alex said, a grin splitting his lips. "Just a little while ago, you told me that this dimension will collapse when the trial completes and every living thing within it will be killed."
"Correct," Keeper said. Its voice was completely flat now, devoid of even the slightest amount of emotion.
"And you also said that only a small fragment of my soul got pulled here. I don't know if that holds true for you as well, but it doesn't actually matter. Assuming you didn't lie to me, then that means there are only a few options here. If you're a living being, then you'll die when the trial ends. It doesn't matter if I kill you or if I leave the dimension after completing the trial; the result is the same. And if you aren't a living being… then it isn't exactly murder, is it?"
"An interesting observation," Keeper said quietly. "You are willing to bet your morals on that analysis? What if you missed something? There is a great difference between fighting to defend yourself and slaughter for the sake of power."
"Yes," Alex said simply. "You're the one who said it yourself. You wouldn't have given me that information for no reason. And I'm not going to second guess myself. The fact that you're still talking to me instead of ending the trial makes me confident this is the right path. In fact, I'd go a step farther. I think you want me to attack you."
"And why is that?" Keeper tilted its head to the side, but there was something else in its eye now. Alex wouldn't have bet on it, but it almost looked like excitement.
"Haven't the faintest clue," Alex admitted. "But I'm going to go ahead and oblige you nonetheless."
A faint smile pulled across Keeper's lips. The gray-skinned monster lowered to the ground to float a dozen paces away from Alex. It turned its hands palm-up, nail-less fingers curling into claws as it drew in a deep, ragged breath.
Faint crackles of pale light danced through the air around it, twisting in and out of existence like distant static electricity. Then the ground trembled. Ripples passed through the darkness around him like droplets of rain hitting a dark lake.
A deep hum filled the air and a wave of pressure followed after it. Alex staggered as it drove into him and nearly knocked the breath from his lungs with its intensity. He was nearly forced to his knees, but he managed to keep his feet under him as he raised a hand to cover some of the light.
Holy shit. What kind of magic is this? It almost feels like a domain.
Two orbs of glowing moonlight ignited above Keeper's palms. They burned with pure, raw magic, so bright in comparison to the darkness around them that he was forced to squint. Shadows peeled away from Keeper as if in retreat.
The ground of the very trial itself was crumbling under the force of the monster's power.
"Very well," Keeper said, its eye locking onto Alex. "Then allow me to continue demonstrating what I am capable of."