I play board games with the Alphas between jobs as a detective, when I'm not busy saving the world. The werewolves are college kids, stacked like pro athletes, and they're coordinated enough to keep the supernatural from bothering their campus, but they're also kind of nerds. Personally, I try to play as a barbarian with lots of extra thews when I can, because they're simple creatures (and because I almost inevitably get fed up with the crap the mages and "wizards" do because I know how magic actually works). Some of the games are full of fantasy fun, while others are sci-fi adventures through space.
Last July, a game called Arkham Horror was re-released, and it's a dive into the strangeness of things beyond our comprehension, as retold by Lovecraft. Whereas in most RPGs you need to worry mostly about health and armor, Arkham Horror also has the characters worrying about Sanity, a resource representing how close their character is to cracking under the weight of madness the Ancient Ones force on them. It's easy to quantify it in game, you just have to keep an eye on how many points you have left, like a second kind of health bar that you really don't want to risk reaching zero. It's usually based on something akin to mental willpower, so my usual muscle-building caveman wouldn't be up to more than a few hits in his existential face before his mind fades to nothing. When your Sanity reaches zero, your character becomes a gibbering mess, and they either somehow make their way to the Asylum and lose half their stuff, or they just die on the spot, possibly because a monster ate them while they were helpless. Good game, roll up a new character.
I always kind of wondered how best to describe the feeling of disgust I have for some of the things I've Seen in my lifetime. It's not a problem of memory; I've waxed lyrical enough times on how the Sight never fades. Instead, especially with a Soul Gaze, it's a matter of explaining your interpretation of what you've Seen.
The Ring of Doom from Bock's Books looked like Hell warmed over. It hit me hard enough that I basically collapsed under how wrong it was, under how much of a sucker punch it was to see all the senseless death and pain, especially with how much other crap I'd been dealing with around then. It still hurts to think about, but distance and time can help harden a heart to that kind of loss, like a scab or a scar slowly healing over time. You don't forget things like that, but you can try to move on from them.
Sanity damage, like in Arkham Horror, can try to give you a numerical value to assign to how much a given memory or idea hurts you. How do you describe wrongness, when it's shoved in your face? How much does being stabbed in the back by a friend truly hurt on an emotional level? Gaming at least, makes it a little easier to quantify, and you might say, "you've encountered a Ring of Sacrifice, which shows you the pain of a hundred innocent lives lost. You lose four Sanity points." Not very descriptive, but at least you have some idea how badly the situation messed you up.
Something had spoken to me in Frisk's mind, and it was capital W WRONG. I jerked instinctively to face whoever, or whatever, It was, already feeling like slime and garbage from the proximity, from the sound oozing into my ears.
I Saw It.
I took ten points of Sanity damage.
"G̨̢e̴͞͞t͝҉̴̛̀ ͏̛́̕ò͡͝͝f̢͞͏f͘͟͜͏ ͘̕͠t҉̶h̵̴̵̨̛e̷̴ ̢̛͠͠f͞lo̴͟o̸r̨̢͠, ̶p̸ą̨͡r͘͟t̶̨ņ̡e͟r͡. ̢ ̡̡̕҉͢W҉̸̶̧̧ȩ́͏͜ ̢̧̛h̛a͏̕͠҉v̧̢͠ę̢́͠ ̵̀a̷̵͢͢ ҉̸d̸̛͝é̸̴͠a͡l͘͢ ͞͏̕̕t̴҉̵ó̀ ͝͏̶͘m̢̕͟͡͠a̵̷ķ̀e̷̴͠. ̶̡́A̴͘͠g̨͘a̷̶̸͘͝i͟͜͠͞n̨̛̕͢͢.͘͏"
…
From experiences I might have years later, I know that getting a face-full of nightmares with my mystical Sight could knock me down for hours at a time every time I remembered the experience. It took me literal hours, sitting in a dark room, fighting with the idea that such a thing could exist, forcefully changing myself until I could finally handle the burden of such terrible knowledge. First it stuck in my brain, knocking me out to think of what I'd Seen. Then, after much effort, it only made me stumble and flinch. Finally, it just made my stomach turn, always.
I never became comfortable enough with that particular memory to make it less painful than that, but then again, that's probably a good thing.
The week of Halloween in 2005 was one of the worst in my life in terms of overusing my Sight and earning permanent scars for it, and that week was exemplified by the moment I saw It.
For the sake of getting over it, I'll try to describe what I Saw.
The form looked like the static of a television not receiving signal, if It swapped black and white for every possible color in existence, switching between channels at random and occasionally drawing images from nowhere along the way. It only stood about waist high as much as a third of the time, but the shadows it carried didn't conform to conventional physics the way they should have, shifting without light. The voice, if It could be called a voice, sounded like holding your breath beyond the point where you can't anymore and into having a seizure, unable to control your limbs as you lose all sensation and collapse onto the floor, which I'd also just done.
Worse than all of that was the way the air turned from moment to moment around the thing, remaking reality into different forms and substances, further shifting my view of It and giving me vertigo. Worse, the images shifted even when I wasn't looking at them, and closing my eyes and looking away didn't make the images stop moving. Different clothes, different skin colors, different faces, different postures, hair styles, make-up, eyes, everything kept moving and I could not look away, even when I covered my eyes with both hands.
The image came through. Always.
Even thinking on It afterwards, the images never appeared to me the same way twice. I Saw this thing, my memory of the creature set in stone, and that stone never stopped shifting.
There was just one. Single. Constant.
In the middle of this thing, Frisk was standing firm, unaltered. No matter how the world around them morphed, they were unmoved.
The damnedest thing was, even though the kid didn't change, how I Saw them from moment to moment absolutely fucking did, including the emotional impact seeing them in that mess had on me.
Like I said. I Saw It. I took ten points of Sanity damage. Recover with the help of a mad doctor, or die. If I hadn't had my backup, things would have been even worse.
"Are you quite finished tormenting my Host?" Lasciel asked It in a reasonable tone. "You've made a nuisance of yourself confusing him as it is."
"A҉҉͡͞ ͘͜͠m̵̀҉͘er̸͜e͜͜ ̴̢̡̛͝e͡͝ç̴̨̀h̷̡͘̕͟o͏̛͝ ̸͘͠o̶̶͡f̶̴̢͞ ҉̡á̡̧̧͏ ̡́͜͜͠p͠͠e̷͠r̢͡ś̴͝ò̵̢̀n̶̨͏-"
"Humphlabubabu," I carefully articulated, and Lasciel snapped her fingers in agreement.
"-is better unseen and unheard, except perhaps to flavor the world."
"I'm not altogether bothered by deals where one side holds all the cards, but you have made the mistake of treading on my territory, little spirit," she continued in a more jovial tone. "This one isn't for sale."
"Our deal is retroactive," It chuckled lightly. "Once the agreement is made, it's always made, forward and backwards, across all time. The terms were fair then, and they still are now."
She shrugged. "A deal like that could be made with anyone, and nobody would be the wiser. So if nobody knows about it…" she smiled, "...then how do you expect to enforce it without inviting interference from everyone else? Especially things that could squash you like a bug?"
It didn't have an answer to that. Frisk finally decided to interrupt the thing's indescribable actions.
"That's enough, Chara. Even if you wanted to, I'm not going to let you take his SOUL. It isn't yours. And he needs it."
The last part of that, Frisk had said almost as an afterthought. Whether It needed the excuse or Frisk thought I needed to hear it, I couldn't know.
Whatever Lasciel had done, my brain had finished recalibrating after it had been forcibly shut down. It wasn't until later that I realized I wasn't thinking about pink elephants on parade, completely failing to consider my memory of It from only moments ago. It wasn't that I couldn't, so much as it didn't make sense not to ignore it. Water is wet. The sun rises in the east. Don't think about It.
With Lasciel filtering my perceptions on the Truth behind the Soul Gaze, I got my second Look at It.
This time, the thing was only moderately disturbing. Frisk still stood at the thing's core, but now the vast majority of the moment to moment alterations It underwent were absent. It still looked like TV static, but now it was black and white and restricted to one single channel (per time I thought back to the second time I Saw It). It hovered twice as tall and large as Frisk, and it also wore a sweater with stripes; that, for some reason, was constant. The air around it still swayed, but now it was a gradual, haunting thing, rather than a rift in reality.
Beyond that, describing It would be pointless. My memory insisted that It was subtly different every time.
"That wasn't part of the deal from before anyway," It groused with a smile. "Fine. Just a reminder." It leaned over Frisk toward me, face doubling in size and the eyes, if they could be called that, oozing some black substance. The smile widened almost beyond Its face. "Don't die, partner."
Frisk frowned slightly and walked closer to where I was in their mind. Or rather, their collective mind. The move brought Frisk back under It, whose face stopped leaking god-knows-what as It fell back in line. The kid offered me a hand up, and against my better judgment, I took it and let the kid haul me to my metaphorical feet. Whatever mess they'd found themselves in, Lasciel's comments made it sound like it wasn't just the kid responsible for the madness they were attached to.
They gestured to the words behind me, still awaiting some kind of decision:
CONTINUE _ DO NOT
"I don't know if Chara gave me that, or if I always had it. Either way, when I die?" The kid pointed. "I just start over. Sans is convinced it's doing some kind of minor damage to the timelines, but nothing has gone seriously wrong yet." The kid's eyes were squinting again, mostly hidden by a bit of hair besides. "I don't know how the bad guys are latching on to my power, but when I find out how, then they're going back to square one while we take them down."
Frisk was responsible for the jumping timelines. Frisk's parasite might be the one twisting around time.
I had no idea if this was a boon, or if things just went from bad to worse.
If the gears in my brain hadn't already been ground down, then it might have bothered me to switch topics from "what the hell is that?!" to discussing time travel without a moment to cool off. As it was, I think Lasciel was just lubricating any thought process that didn't go back to It.
"Frisk, there's no way we can count on that working out," I said carefully. "The people we're up against have access to way more knowledge on black magic than you could shake a stick at, or they wouldn't have known how to follow you back in the first place. You can't count on jumping through time to save you from them."
"You think I, you think we, don't know that?" Frisk asked me tonelessly. "If it was easy, we'd have already won a thousand times over by now."
Oh, I really hoped that wasn't an accurate count.
"These kinds of things have knock on effects, kid," I tried again. "I've already told you that there are risks involved in messing with the laws. This is one of them. The bad guys are close enough to an automatic victory at this point that if you keep pushing back, any chance we have of winning this time around will be lost. We're really close to winning this one; several of the bad guys are down for the count. If you start us over again, that advantage is gone. You need to stop, before things get even worse."
Frisk let out a frustrated sigh, and the It overhead regarded me with something approaching casual disdain. "This was never a problem before, back in the Underground. I've lived the same day for years before, and it never did any harm. Now you're telling me that if I reset again, we'll lose. How the heck can we actually win without that power? If I could just find a way to stop them, to make them stop following me back..."
I considered how to talk the kid down off the ledge.
If they could even still be considered a kid.
"Time travel… is inherently bad." I started the idea off, testing the words out. "There's a reason we aren't supposed to swim against the currents of time. Forget paradoxes for a moment here, and forget alternate timelines. Let's just focus on what it does to your brain." I took a deep breath of not-air, and tried to think back to how Ebenezar had warned me against the same idea. "When you travel through time, bits and pieces of your brain tend to clash with whatever you were supposed to be thinking in the original timeline, assuming you're just trying to reinsert yourself into a body you used to have. The neurons in your brain get forcibly rewired, causing minor brain damage."
I looked down at the kid, ignoring It as It also regarded my words.
"Spiritually speaking," I continued, "it also starts warping you to believe that you deserve the ability to change time, more and more as you use it" -and wasn't I learning the significance of that now- "so that you start deciding it's not only a better answer to your problems, but maybe the only one. Trust me, kid, it's not like that."
Frisk's gaze moved from me, then back to the words. "Except the only time I see this is when I die," they reminded me, gesturing forward. "You're saying I should just stay dead?"
I huffed out a sigh. I choose to deliberately ignore the implications of the kid only being able to time travel from beyond the grave, even if it might explain how the Necromancers caught on. "If I was a member of the Wardens, it would probably be my job to say yes. I'm not, though, so let's just focus on the damage it's doing to you. You said Sans was trying to warn you about things going wrong? That's definitely something to look out for. Have you had any problems with your coordination or memories since you started using this power?"
Frisk's face drained of all color, and they stared forward, seeing nothing. "...So that's why I never-"
"Best not bring up bad memories, partner," It whispered. I don't know which of us It was talking to, but I wasn't willing to risk that particular fight when Frisk's soul might be on the line. I don't know what exactly had a hold on Frisk, but I was going to make damned sure I didn't rock the boat too hard, lest Frisk ignore me and fall back on the familiar demon the kid had picked up somewhere along the way. If that happened, everybody was going to lose. For once in my life, I kept my mouth shut.
"Yeah," Frisk said, looking back up at me. "Yeah, you could say that."
"Well," I tried to ignore how It was leaning a little closer to me over Frisk's head, "there you go. That's just a side effect that's sort of obvious. Another one would be if there were dozens of copies of you from across time running around, getting in each others' ways, but I don't think that's what's going on. Actually, you know what?" I gestured to the words. "Forget I said anything. You wanted to know how we win, when time travel is only making our enemies stronger. Let's focus on that."
While I considered how to best present my idea without setting the "little spirit" off too hard, I made the mistake of looking down again.
Below our feet I could See the entire elongated path, except now it was definitely other. Maybe it was a byproduct of how close I was to the living reality-warping mess that Frisk was attached to, but whatever was causing it, things were wrong. As before, every static detail of the winding path remained unchanging. This time, though, everything else moved, simultaneously. All possibilities, all walking paths, all the Monsters who populated the prison, and I Saw everything they might have possibly done, all in an instant, a different possibility in every blink, and all of them happening at once.
Even with the Fallen Angel protecting me (and wasn't that a scary thought), it still felt like I took another point of Sanity damage. I don't have a better way of describing that particular headache.
"Dresden?" Frisk asked, sounding a little worried, and I could almost feel It leaning away from me. As It did, most of the vision parted away.
"Just caught up in the view, kid," I gasped out, willing my heart to slow down and stop pounding so hard.
They sighed, both It and Frisk together, and then the kid pointed to the Golden Hall near the end of the path. My gaze was drawn to it, and I could See the vaguest hints of what once was, or might have been. Frisk was standing there, holding a kitchen knife, and Sans was standing opposite them. Just as before, when I'd Gazed him, Sans had a wall of skulls firing blasts of God only knows what at the interloper.
Unlike me, the Frisk of the vision moved, dodging every single attack.
"That's the Hall of Judgement," Frisk was saying. "I brought you here to show you why Sans and I don't like each other. That's why. Sans was trying to stop me from busting open the barrier the wrong way. He said time might stop if I tried it, and wouldn't let me pass. We fought a lot, in that hallway. Maybe we shouldn't have. I thought it was the only real way out. I know it may sound strange, but the fights got pretty violent."
Based on the way the kid spoke, and how the vision got harder to see as It leaned further away, I suspected I Saw a lot more than I was meant to.
Unfortunately, it seemed like we were running out of time. The distorted view of Frisk slashing Sans across his chest was the last I saw of the golden hallway as the fight faded away, and the rest of the Underground swiftly followed. The Soul Gaze was ending. Just before I left Frisk's soul, I heard a faint voice speaking past me.
"If you're interested in defeating your foes without time travel, you could always pick up a coin of the Fallen…"
Oh, fuck me.
I was staring into Frisk's open eyes, only now they were more than half closed again. The Soul Gaze had ended, and at precisely the wrong moment.
"Don't listen to the Fallen Angel, Frisk, she's only trying to steal your soul." I talked as quick as I could, because I had no idea how much Lasciel might have said when the Gaze ended that I missed. "I guarantee you, we're going to win this, and we're going to do it because-"
Heavy footfalls were coming up the circular staircase in the second floor Monsters' bar and breakfast lounge, cutting me off. I was up in an instant, reaching for my staff leaning against a nearby wall, and with a whisper of wind and will, it flew into my readied hand.
My readied left hand.
I didn't have time to think about that, instead focusing on the intruders.
The first thing I noticed was the large sword at the leader's hip. Swords like that I knew were magically empowered to cut through damned near anything, especially other kinds of magic. They were the second most famous symbol of the office.
The most well-known symbol, the one most everybody in the magical world was familiar with, was his grey cloak.
The nigh-invincible Wardens had arrived.
I could see the bandages on some of them needed to be changed.
They were led by good old Warden Morgan, who had already pointed his own worn and nicked staff at me in one hand with his massive sword held in the other, and looked like he wanted to run me through. He'd drawn it from his hip faster than I could blink. As one of the strongest fighters on the Council, there was no question how the fight would go if I was stupid enough to take him up on it. I quickly lowered my staff and pointed it away from them, but his grim, angry frown somehow managed to only deepen on his sour face. I didn't believe that the bloody bandage just over his left eye meant a damned thing against how dangerous he was, and I did my best to ignore the rips in his cloak and what looked like a recently-unbroken nose.
Second in line was a woman who looked like she was pushing past the later half of sixty, and when you live as long as a wizard does, that could mean anywhere from over a hundred to well past two hundred and fifty years old. In the Wardens' line of work, grey cropped hair means experience and power instead of over the hill, and she looked like she could carve her own slender scimitar through me as easy as telling a bedtime story. Her name was Warden Anastasia Luccio, and she was the first in line if there was a seat to be filled on the Senior Council. The Italian woman may not have been one of the big seven, but she was the next best thing, the field commander of the Council's forces in our war with the Red Court. She only had scratches on her hiking clothes, especially compared to the others. Her own staff was planted on the ground, rather than pointed at me. She flashed me a tiny smile, but it was gone before I blinked.
As Morgan and Commander Luccio moved aside, him bouncing his gaze between me and Sans, I spotted two more of the infamous Wardens in various states of injury, except for some reason they looked like they were in their twenties, if that. Past them, nobody else was making their way up the stairs.
I turned back to Frisk, ignoring the Wardens for a moment. Call it a calculated gamble, but even if they tried taking a swing at me, ensuring the kid didn't do anything stupid was more important to me at that moment.
"I don't know what military commander said it," I tried to pick up where I'd left off, "there's an old saying in war. Don't push the enemy army back against a wall, because if you do, they'll fight harder than ever, and what might seem like a sure victory will fall apart in your hands. They've pushed us too hard this time, and we're going to kick their asses back to whatever hells they've crawled out of. Believe that."
"Sun Tzu, the Art of War," the old woman offered in her faint Italian accent, glancing between me and the child. Morgan looked like he wanted to say something too, but he either held his tongue or the woman was just faster. "We have a lot to catch up on and very little time. We need the room, Frisk, Sans."
"Thanks, Commander, but I might-" I cut in, and paused as the attention of the room returned to me. I glanced at the four Wardens that had been able to leave off fighting in the streets to join me for a meeting, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. Unless they had another twenty or thirty Wizards still out there, this wasn't half of what I'd hoped would be my backup. Jesus, it really was as bad as Ebenezar said. "I might want at least the skeleton nearby, as our liaison to the other Monsters, and at this point I know for a fact that the kid is going to end up hearing everything whether they're here or not. Unless you've-"
"Dear God, Dresden, he's only a child!" Morgan all but shouted over me. "Is there no depth you won't fall to-"
"Enough!"
We all turned to Frisk, who no longer looked much like a child. Their eyes, barely visible, burned.
"I am a member of the United Nations," Frisk spoke quietly, firmly, "and I have sat and listened, while my people were threatened with war and death. I have walked quietly while protestors have assured me and my people that we're all doomed to an eternity in the fires of Hell. I have stood aside for the start of this war, while innocent Monsters were tortured to death, and I have heard their screams. I may not deserve a seat at your table, but I will not be treated as a child. Not anymore."
Frisk looked up at Morgan's face, and I wanted to scream at them not to share a Soul Gaze, but they apparently weren't looking into each others' eyes. Morgan was caught somewhere between anger and, unless I completely misunderstood the emotion, something akin to pity or regret. Sans came up behind the kid and put a hand on their shoulder. With a mutter of, "come on, we can sit at the bar," the skeleton very carefully pulled the kid away from the rest of us.
Given how much they seemed to dislike and distrust one another, I was sure I caught a moment of hesitation before Sans actually touched the kid, but I doubt anybody else saw it.
After sharing a look with Commander Luccio, one that lasted a few seconds and half a dozen minute expressions, Morgan eventually grimaced and muttered violently about "checking for veils," then started moving through the room with a purpose.
"You sure about bringing a kid into this, Dresden, even one that looks like he could beat me up for lunch money?" a hispanic male accent asked from near the stairs, and I took another look at the other newcomers. I recognized the speaker from a Council meeting a few years back. Naturally tanned skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and sharp-edged, classically Spanish features. Last I'd seen him, he was giggling at something I'd insulted the big wigs with. He didn't look older than Billy the werewolf, despite the years between then and now. His own sword was short and straight, and on his opposite hip sat a Glock and, to my surprise, several fragmentation grenades. He sounded confident, and his staff had just enough wear on it to tell me he'd seen fights, but hadn't had one yet that really put him on his ass.
"If we tried to throw 'em out," I checked back as our two hosts sat themselves at the bar, "we might find we'd need another place to meet. And you are…?"
"He is Warden Ramirez," Luccio cut in with a quiet, confident voice. "Ramirez, Dresden."
Ramirez just gave me another grin and started pulling over chairs to seat the five of us at the glass table.
Luccio introduced the last member of our little tea party, a sweet-faced young Asian girl, as Yoshimo. The young woman wore clothes and equipment similar enough to Ramirez's that I guessed it might have been a uniform. She also looked younger and less experienced than even he did. Her leg had a hefty splint on it, and she leaned on her staff enough that while I figured it may not have been broken, it was probably close enough to it. She gave me a low bow as best as she could given the circumstances, and I gave her half a nod in return.
"So, I've heard interesting things about the war, recently," I tried to keep my voice level, given everything that had happened in the last day, and especially the last ten minutes. "How many more Wardens can I expect to see out there while we hammer the Necromancers back down? A dozen? Maybe?"
Luccio regarded me quietly, then reached back into her cloak. She pulled out a brown package that moved around a bit like cloth, and held it out to me. "Take it."
I set my staff down and again tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut, telling me that I'd been here before, and I hadn't liked it then, either. I unwrapped the package, and opened up the folded fabric inside.
It was a grey cloak.
"Put that on," Luccio said in her quiet, steady voice. "And then every available Warden will be present."
Author's Note:
Special thanks again to Alex and Alix, both of whom made this chapter possible through their editing, helping bring the various characters back in line.
I also want to thank Xavon Wrentaile, of Beyond the Outer Gates Lies…, for both the idea of and solution to the m̶̵à̡dń̷éss͢ t́̀͘è̸x͝t, which I copied from eeemo dot net. Beholders, man.
If you recognize some of the interactions at the end of this chapter, it's because I drew more heavily on my source material for the start of the meeting, albeit in a new location. If you recognize other things out of place, it's because things have changed significantly from what happened in canon.
I like to keep my cards close to my chest on this, but know that if I ever have to disappear or truly decide the story is dead, then I'll post everything I still have on my way out. Three out of the four or five endings are close enough to be called finished, or near enough, and all my notes paint a picture on where we're going, even if it's slow. I appreciate the patience and well wishes from the crowd, as well. They keep me going, or at least coming back.
There's still plenty enough left, and step by step, we're gonna get there. Cheers, all.