Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events depicted in this story are fictitious, except for those that aren't. All resemblance to people, gods, animals or objects either living or dead is coincidental. Some of the ideas might not be mine. No newts, krakens, dogs, ice devils or other monsters were injured in the course of writing this story.

The Pacifist

A starving Rogue was using the last of his strength to crawl towards a shop with a food ration in it. He was already on the verge of fainting, desperately attempting to move on during his short moments of consciousness but determined to make it.

It was then that he saw the figure, thin and shrouded, watching him intently.

"I... thought I... wouldn't see... you before... the endgame!" he gasped strenuously.

"Well. You _were_ starving," said Famine.

"Hey!" cried the Rogue. "But I'll make it! Just watch how I'll... make it..." he ended his sentence with strange doubt in his voice. "_Were_ starving?"

It was far too easy for him to speak.

"Hello, Famine!" said a new voice. As the Rogue looked up he saw a Valkyrie with a scythe waving to the thin demonic figure. Who waved back.

"Starvation," said the Valkyrie. "There are worse ways to go."

A sweep of her scythe seemed to separate the Rogue from a Rogue corpse.

"You're lucky. You get to stay around for a while," the Valkyrie told the spectre of the Rogue.

"I'm -" the Rogue said, watching himself fade "- going to be a gh..."

His voice faded into nothingness.

"One thing about being a ghost," the Valkyrie told him, as she turned to leave together with Famine, "You don't have a voice. Have fun."

"That's it for now," the Valkyrie told Famine as their bodies faded in a teleport. "The next guy's gonna be a Barbarian. I expect him to survive a bit longer. That's one of the reasons why I don't much like Tourists."

"Actually I killed a Tourist once," Famine mused, "on the Astral Plane. But he had four amulets of life saving - I didn't stand a chance."

"That would have been before my time," the Valkyrie replied, as a countless number of atoms suddenly decided to spend some time in the form of a feminine demigod.

"Yes," said another pseudo-infinite cloud of atoms that gathered up to the shape of the figure of a Rider. "Actually quite a lot has happened before your time. The first endgame, the creation of elemental planes... The Pacifist... When they first decided to make a really big endgame and everybody started thinking what it should be like, someone came up with an idea to-"

"Er," the Valkyrie interrupted, "the Pacifist?"

"Are you telling me you've never heard of the Pacifist?" Famine said, flabbergasted. The Valkyrie shook her head.

"He was one of the weirdest things that have ever happened in the Dungeons," Famine told her. "Those of us who were around still raise a toast to him occasionally when we're getting especially nostalgic."

"So? What made him so special?"

"Well, Stoner - that was his name, although not many still remember it - was a Knight. And you know how these Knights are. Loads of charisma, and little else."

The Valkyrie nodded. She picked up two mugs from the counter. Famine sniffed its drink cautiously and then drained it in one huge gulp.

"This one didn't even have a sword. Said he comes in peace. Any other guy would've got himself killed in five turns. You know, jackals and newts and other hungry critters."

"And he didn't?" she asked.

"No." Famine beckoned the Barkeep for a refill. "He _smiled_."

"And?"

"That's when the guy's charisma kicked in. It was off the bloody scale, if you know what I mean. Most monsters he met turned out to be tame right from the start. Those who weren't soon learned from their mistake. The hard way. Killed by those of their companions who did fall under his influence. And all the while the Pacifist would actually try to talk the others out of killing each other. They didn't listen, of course."

"Uh-mh," said the Valkyrie, trying to picture a pacifist in the Dungeons of Doom. It was not an easy task.

"Shopkeepers gave things away to him for free. The only time someone actually asked him money for something was when he bought a wand of wishing for a token three zorkmids. Of course, nothing came of _that_, as you may well imagine. He wasted all wishes on stuff like 'world peace' and 'that everyone were happy'. Not one of the smartest people ever to enter the Dungeons, but definitely the most charismatic one. And determined as well. When the wand told him that nothing called 'world peace' existed in this dungeon, he tried again and again until whatever it is that grants people their wishes gave up and cancelled the wish."

The Valkyrie shook her head. "What a waste."

"You know all these statues at Medusa's place?" Famine continued. "We had a couple of hundred of them after he went through there. Everyone that came with him was fighting for the privilege to attack anything hostile for him. But most of them didn't stand a chance against Medusa, of course. The maintenance-people spent three days moving that mess out to warehouses and the sculptors were out of business for half a year."

"You mean Medusa wasn't affected by the charisma?" she asked.

"His charms affected none of us," said a new voice. King Arthur had joined the two. There was beer-foam in his beard already and he looked like he still needed a drink. "A Knight of utmost persistence came my way today. I spoke unto him, 'Thou canst not fight the Dragon unless thou hast gaineth at least thirteen experience levels in the Dungeons!' and expelled him from the Quest, yet he returned with confidence in his Dragon-slaying prowess. That poor lad shall never recover the Amulet of Yendor now."

"Closed the portal, did you?" Famine said.

"Aye. He appeared to understand me not." King Arthur drained his mug and beckoned for another. "I recall the man thou called the Pacifist. He arrived with but two experience levels and pets in great numbers. 'We shalt not admit thee yet,' I told him and was instantly mauled by his vast army of creatures." King Arthur looked sullen.

"He doesn't like to recall that incident," Famine whispered to the Valkyrie. "None of the named people were affected by the charm, except the shopkeepers, of course, but by the time he reached the Quest his army included dragons and trolls. Not a very patient race, trolls. When Arthur tried to kick the Pacifist out of the Quest they killed him. Naturally the portal vanished and _no one_ could get in anymore but trolls are not known for their brainpower, you know."

"So he couldn't go on the Quest. Escaped the dungeons, huh?"

Famine sighed and raised his mug in a toast towards the wall behind it. "Died. Very tragic. Exploding tin he picked up from the food storage room of the Castle. Only, he had already started to ascend towards the Entrance again..."

The Valkyrie's eyes widened. "You can't mean..."

"Yep," said Famine. "A bones pile. After his death his pets were untameable and quite unkillable, too. In the end the place had some two dozen ghosts. A Wizard was smart enough to levelport downwards and avoid the confrontation but he couldn't levelport back up again after getting the Amulet."

"So... Who beat the odds then?"

"No one, actually. Eventually a really big hunk of a Barbarian showed up, armor all well-enchanted, hundreds of hit points... He survived for one turn and escaped barely by zapping a wand of digging. On the next level he was promptly bitten to death by a jackal."

The Valkyrie eyed King Arthur who had moved from their table and was now singing songs that seemed to contain a lot of the word 'gold' with several dwarves. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

"And that's the end?" she hazarded a guess.

"Almost." Famine shook its head. "The creatures from the old bones pile kept popping up here and there in the Dungeons and killed a lot of people until the Wizard himself took the matters into his own hands and had the soldiers take out most of those who remained. After that we made sure that no more exceptional Players could enter ever again. Actually, I believe even you met one of the last few."

"Don't tell me," the Valkyrie said gloomily. "The purple worm on level three that ate my dog?"

Famine smiled a demonic smile. "I must commend you for the creative way you disposed of the creature."

"Just lucky to have found that cloak of displacement," she said nonchalantly. "A purple worm with a belly full of boulder is not very hard to kill even for an inexperienced fighter."

"Right," said Famine. "Anyway, that's the story of the Pac... Hey, is your scythe supposed to glow like that?"

"Oh, drat!" the Valkyrie exclaimed. "The Barbarian is going to bite the dust... Got to go."

She dropped a couple of coins on the table. After her ascension money was not going to be a problem for her for a couple of decades. She stepped out of the door and vanished.

Somewhere in the Dungeons of Doom a Barbarian was happily slaughtering a band of hill orcs, having quite forgotten the ominous last scream the shrieker in the previous room had emitted.

THE END