There is no Epic Loot here, Only Puns.
Chapter 220: Convergence

Delta wanted to be happy for the group for getting this far despite being a new team, she really did, but all she could do was make Fera distract them with free food and drinks (which made her sigh, but Fera didn't argue when she felt Delta's emotions) to keep them in the Dungeon.

She had to keep them in the Dungeon. That... void was out there. That Echo she had been pondering about how to get close enough to tear down... only now it was coming for her.

It was like a blot in the sun, a creeping sensation of something standing out on the street, staring up at her window... it was an omen she could sense before she could even see it. Delta had briefly felt and seen Echoes before, the parts of the Little Brother formed into new malicious entities. It was mostly around Renny the Ghoul's memories and when she fought Mharia, the hopefully ex-villain.

She had 'brushed' against Mharia's favored Echo, her Sun.

Or as others have called him, 'Nephew'.

She also felt an Echo when studying the last noticeable group with that lovely Necromancer man. That tainted dagger had consumed one of them and even distracted Delta, revealing the Echo in its entirety to her.

It had been under Durence, it had been content to wither away and survive off vague energy its items had given it, but not anymore. Now, the Echo, the Void, the Lack-Of, the Silence, was on the move, towards Delta.

Something had stirred it into action and Delta had a strange feeling it was because Delta had done something.

The problem was, Delta did a 'lot of things', usually 'accidentally'. However, instead of worrying about the why or how, she was more than ready to settle for 'when', as in 'when would it come so Delta could make it run home crying'.

She had Hero ready in his Raid-form which was still not fully recharged since fighting Mharia. It would have to be enough. Delta sent an order for her contracts to all gather on the first floor. Delta also had her slightly...unethical genetics experiment brewing in the secret floor between the first and second floor ready for war.

Deo was here, Kemy was here, Yattina was here, that cute little princess girl was here, a wonderful boy called Mas was here, and Grim too, she guessed. If that thing got inside her Dungeon? It would kill them and Delta would bleed to the bone before she allowed that to happen to her friends.

And Grim.

She just felt tense, unable to do more than just wait.

If only-

Wait. A thought occurred to her as her own instincts rose to challenge the Echo.

Where was Alpha?

---

Durence was screaming. The people were screaming, the ground was shaking, the buildings were trembling, and the air was vibrating. It all melded together in a chaotic harmony of a horrible memory. Alpha looked out at Durence, the scene replaced by a more normal town, a quieter town... a destroyed town.

He had to do something.

Alpha stared at the sheer panic as normal adventurers of various ranks and Fairplay officers were surrounded by what seemed like hordes of mindless dolls wearing the skin of people. Armed with tools and weapons that made them tougher than they seemed, Alpha studied them as the back of his mind screamed for him to run before it was his fault again. He stared at the doll-people, ignoring the voice, people that had their Seeds so rapidly growing through them they all felt like the 'same' person. Some had a chance of recovery, with shades of resistance here and there to his 'magic' sight, but others?

There was nothing left inside these people. Hearts, minds, and souls gone in a screaming voice that rose higher and higher, as if unrestrained by the human it pretended to be or was... They were now just eyes, mouths, extra toes and fingers for that... that...

Disgusting and horribly familiar feeling.

Alpha stood in the square, brushing off any that came near him with their tools or strange weapons with esoteric effects. While the doll-people had unique weapons, none of them were actually trained or had skill with their chosen tools. Alpha knew it was rich coming from him, he who just got handed skills over time, but he still practiced them, refined them... The dolls seemed to expect the weapons to do all the heavy lifting, making them rather terrible fighters long term.

Which is why the sight of everyone panicking was worrying and frustrating. Alpha frowned, wanting to tell people to go this way or that, to just stop panicking and work together, but his voice faltered. He should do that... just like he should have done it so long ago.

Alpha pressed his back against the stone monument to the town's founder and tried to logic his way out of the emotional mess. He was not a leader... he was a follower, an aid, a proto-type, a student, and maybe a friend.

Not a leader. Never a leader. Alpha had lost that right from the start.

Almost out of reflex, he opened his menu and saw the very first quest he had ever gotten from Sister. The first one that he still failed to complete.

'Recruit a companion and inspire them for the coming threats!' it read with some trivial reward about skills and such.

It remained incomplete. It should always remain incomplete - or so Alpha had thought, but here he was again. A village in danger, a monster coming, and Alpha standing around like a coward. Alpha clenched his hand.

Everyone in his life that was a positive force had reached out to him, extended their hand first, let their guard down before he had to do the same.

Delta should have been the hero, Alpha should have been the isolated shut-in that would have done all he could to avoid people. He tried to shout out a better formation or encourage someone but again, who would listen?

Who would listen to him?

"Alpha!" someone called and the sound was clear across the chaos and confusion. Alpha began to turn to the voice calling his name when he stopped in his tracks as something that made his skin crawl, his blood boil, rose up as it climbed the nearby village buildings, looking like a mannequin that wasn't quite solid. It used the homes like shields, slashing about wildly. His system went crazy, his instincts cried out to just attack, his magic gathered without much thinking, his eyes completely locked on that wrongness screaming in the distance when-

'Sister has deactivated this part of the Alpha-Program. Sister is sorrowful that it was designed. She apologizes. She can only ever apologize.'

The utter focus shattered, control and free will rushing back with a startling snap and Alpha recoiled as his menu showed an active series of shifts and updates, blocks of confusing letters and symbols coated in orange flaking across it.

Alpha pulled his gaze away, which took strength, to see Amenstar rushing towards him. The son of the priest and Deo's friend. Why was he looking for Alpha now of all times? Amenstar looked sweaty as active exercise in the middle of a battlefield was something he had forgotten to train.

One of the dolls, corrupted by the monster, slashed at Amenstar, but the boy stomped his foot and waves of dust and fishbones from a nearby compost pile shot at the attacker, sending him crashing back with the sounds of clattering.

Alpha supposed you don't ever have a bone to pick with a necromancer.

Alpha tended to forget the boy was a budding necromancer, but it wasn't a bad thing. Necromancer rights in the eyes of the law and public opinion had advanced a lot in the last few years if Alpha recalled.

In Amenstar's hand was that... sword. A dozen feelings, a dozen regrets, warmth, annoyance, and pain flashed through Alpha with shattered memories of a hazy classroom, but it was gone before he could grasp details.

"Ohoho, nice touch. Can I interest you in a spine whip of a witch?" the sword offered as it glowed but Amenstar shook it, making it splutter in annoyance as it reverted back to the sword instead of whatever it was becoming.

"Alpha, Gam here said there's a 'totally evil force at work and someone should do something about it'. Also, don't say his name aloud," Amenstar said, panting a little as he fought his way towards Alpha.

"Gam..." Alpha said slowly. The name felt off, not right, but not incorrect either. The sword was rather emotive, bending its pommel or making its blade tilt or bend to express one emotion of another like a long face.

"Alpha! How have you been! Still shy? Still nervous? Still bite people?" the sword asked, putting on a tone of detached brightness, but Alpha swore there was a tinge of something deeper. Like someone hiding a long painful wait. A pang of loneliness that Alpha had never thought anyone would direct towards him.

"We know each other," Alpha said, a statement, not a question. Gamma tilted his blade, making it curl like a question mark.

"You really don't remember? Damn, did I break the memory lock first? I don't know! Have we seen Beta? Delta? Is there an Omega? A Nu?" the sword joked as chaos and terror rose in the town. Gamma seemed to actively ignore it all. "It only makes sense, I am the oldest here in terms of our new jobs, right! Years and years and years... and years... of waiting," Gam trailed off flatly. The dramatic shift of emotions unsettled Alpha slightly, but he pressed on.

"What is that?" Amenstar asked as he recoiled at the sight of the monster leaping from building to building, screaming in a sound that didn't feel like noise at all. The thing seemed to be looking for something, finding dolls but all of them seemed sour to the creature, as if it wanted to find a rare object amongst trash.

"Oh, that? That's Alpha, he's a bit quiet and- oh wait, you meant the jumping screaming shadow monster that makes your insides feel tainted!" Gamma laughed before humming, his tone a little like a crazy person who perhaps believed he was still isolated, talking to people who didn't exist.

"It's the screams of innocence as it was cast down into the void, shattering into a dozen unflattering pieces that made unlikeable monsters. It's a friend! Sort of. Not really. Not anymore. Even I can't say his name anymore. That got shattered too. It's inside everyone, a tiny piece, a thousandth of a sound of a letter," Gamma explained, which explained nothing. Gamma talked like he was on some stage, directing his voice out and exaggerating each word with a droll or giggle.

"People are in trouble, what is wrong with you?" Alpha asked the sword with a deep frown. For some reason, the tone of Alpha, his slight anger, affected Gamma more than anything else thus far, as if he expected Alpha to be in on the joke of it all. The thing changed from a sword to a shield as its tone became defensive.

"I was locked in a box for nearly twenty or so years, might be off since I lost count. A dark little box that let in no light but let my jailer peer at me whenever she felt insane enough to stay up four nights in a row. Then when I escaped that box, a madman put me inside a pot. I was in there for maybe a week, again, time could be off. Then when I escaped, I fell into a lake and was stuck there... for a time," Gamma said, voice rising with sudden hysterics as if Alpha had no right to be mad at them.

"I apologize if my sense of urgency is a little lost," Gamma hissed, morphing through a dozen shapes as if their emotions were so complex, no one shape could hope to contain them.

"But that's just me. Why? What happened to you?" Gamma demanded, questioned, raged, wept, and then laughed and Alpha... stared back.

"My beginner village was destroyed because I couldn't make any friends. Monsters tore apart the people who were kind to me and my cowardice cost them their loved ones, their homes, and their lives," he replied honestly, pain tearing open scarred wounds he thought closed over long ago and there was an odd pause that was broken up only by screaming and clashing of weapons.

"That's rough, buddy." Gamma decided and seemed to nod to itself, shaking itself back into a sword, returning back to a state of control and distant observation.

"Alright, go kick some Echo butt. Me and the Amen here will be cheering you on," the sword encouraged and Alpha stared at Gamma for a full ten seconds, hoping to hear the punchline to this joke but nothing came.

"What about you?" Alpha asked what seemed like an obvious question.

"Me? No, no! I've slain three or four Echoes already! I feel like that's a lot. I even really liked one of them," Gamma said hastily, leaning away from Alpha as if he was now the unhinged talking weapon.

Alpha supposed in a way, he was. However, Alpha knew something else.

Knew someone else.

Delta wouldn't push Alpha on to do this alone. When Alpha tried to do that and lost his soul, Delta rescued him despite being out of her domain. Delta would give it her all, fighting not only the world's view, but also the darkness underneath her.

Delta would make Alpha feel like a hero.

Alpha moved, taking Gamma into his hands and it felt so right... and so wrong. It was like Gamma and he connected on another level, beyond tool and wielder, beyond two lost souls, to the point where it was like their systems were two-halves of a whole.

Alpha's changed system began to block strange programs or processes that would begin linking them, the changes diverting and allowing both of them to retain their will and not become weapon and hero.

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Alpha exhaled and thanked Sister. The feeling he got was of mild shock from the system but he didn't have time to think about that.

"One more won't hurt then," Alpha said and he felt oddly... strong. Not because of Gamma, the power was there but this new strength came from a new source.

Delta would be proud of him.

"Let me go! I feel weird! Your hands are too soft!" Gamma said in surprise and tried to shapeshift into different forms to be released.

"We can do this together. You're the oldest and I have some skills. We slay the Echo thing and you can go back with Amenstar. The faster you help? The faster you can go back to avoiding boxes and lakes," Alpha said, trying to imagine how Delta convinced newcomers not to kill everything.

Slowly and with great effort.

"I dunno... that Echo looks like a munchkin. I hate metagamers," Gamma complained and Alpha felt the words echo in him as someone else, a long time ago, threw the phrase at him over... a board game? A table?

Somewhere safe.

"The key to beating a metagamer," Alpha said slowly, the words coming from his heart, "is to metagame them harder," he said and Gamma seemed to jolt in surprise at the words.

"Ohoho? That sounds a lot like a nerd I used to like," it teased.

"This can't get any weirder," Amenstar said, hands pressed together.

Suddenly, before them in the air, a tear of deep black and red emerged with the sounds of roars echoing into quacks. Stepping forth in a cloud of ash, smoke, and heat, a girl in torn clothes emerged.

"Damn ducks lied! That hurt!" she cursed and stomped her feet down, putting out black fire and smoothing down her arms to ensure they were still there.

Alpha and Gamma stared as Beta looked up to meet their gaze.

"Urgh, urge to call… out... nerds... rising," she said, gripping her throat as she squinted as if the sight of them hurt her head terribly.

Alpha actually had a strong urge to put his collectables and fragile things somewhere safe, the sensation of knuckles dragging across his scalp emerging like a hidden trauma.

"Oh my God, It's Anti-Social-Gal!" Gamma said with sheer delight as if he had been waiting for this day for a long time.

"The biter and the one who talks like they're some movie character." Beta grunted, the words flowing out of her, but Alpha could see that it meant as little to her as it did to him. Beta stared then growled and turned, intending to walk off.

Her words finally did register which was annoying because Alpha didn't recall biting anyone.

They all stopped as a shudder seemed to ring through the air, through the ground, in the water, through the souls of every living being, focusing on the three of them in the same space.

"They're here..." Gamma warned in a strange high-pitch tone.

The attention of dozens of beings like the creature nearby focused on them as if hating what they saw, some dreading, some wanting to confront it, and some refusing to believe it. Alpha wanted to say they were eyes, but they were more like projections of great and terrible evils, gazing from afar with magic or sheer awareness.

"What the hell is that?" Beta turned to the sky, as if trying to see what was staring down at them.

"Echoes. All the Echoes. All of them focusing on the here and now. Afraid of little old us," Gamma reported as if he was long used to such eldritch nonsense.

"That's nice, but I meant that!" Beta demanded as she radiated an aura of ash and demonic energy that made Amenstar stare at her in something like confusion, alarm, and interest.

Alpha followed her gaze and pointed finger to the horizon where something large and ominous was moving through the air from the east, casting a large shadow over the fields like a slow-motion meteor.

Coming into focus was something like a small office building combined with a glass decorative museum, moving along a perfect rectangular block of stone. It floated through the air on what seemed like dangerous but controlled levels of mana that Alpha had never sensed before.

"Buying Twitter wasn't enough for him, now he comes for our children and crops," Gamma mused, confusing Alpha but he didn't dwell on it as the symbol on the building became clearer.

A hand clasping an orb.

"Fairplay?" Alpha questioned.

"Fairwho?" Beta blinked and everyone looked at her, as if she was ten pages behind in the script.

"I uh... lost track of time," she said, sounding angry about it.

"Uh! Same sis!" Gamma cheered, "trauma buddies!" he offered and Beta glared hard enough her eyes began to glow with actual lasers.

"We're safe! HQ has come!" a Fairplay officer cried and others voiced confusion as such an event had occurred before but they seemed nervous.

"You," Alpha grabbed one of the people and pointed to the building as the Echoes watched events unfolding as the one nearby moved closer and closer, sniffing the air.

"What is happening?" he said and the man spluttered, too dazed to hold information back.

"Fairplay HQ is here but it should only come if... if the Dungeon is turning into an Abomination," the man said with a tremble.

"Cool, why bring the office building if the Dungeon is going weird? Why not send people or stay away?" Beta questioned, sounding bored of it all already and her stomach growled. Underfoot, the grass smoldered as if wherever she had come from now tainted her.

The building hovered over Durence then like a net being thrown off a boat, surrounded the entire air in a semi-sphere that encapsulated the town with a mix of white, silver, and gray mana that was a lot like the equivalent of magic tofu.

Alpha would say it was all bland to the point of being tasteless, but it was worse in a way. It had a taste which was best described as 'awful'.

"It's the Mana-filtering system. It'll protect us from the Abomination taint," someone explained as they all glowed blue with some greens. Beta was dyed a deep black, Gamma was gold to his annoyance and Alpha was partly orange and partly white.

"You mean... that mana?" Beta pointed bluntly to faint wisps of orange motes that punched a corrupted follower of an Echo in the seed and another cloud that was spray painting mushrooms only visible in mage sight until now.

More motes appeared as it punched through the filtering to do more things like sustain the children, nourish the adults, water plants, sweep door mats clean, got into war with some ants, conquered dust bunnies, and made a peace treaty with spiders.

There was a long pause but Alpha has seen enough.

"I'm going to stop the Echo and check on Delta!" he called as he ran off towards the Echo in the distance which was tossing Miss Ruli and Mr Quiss around like toys. Mr Quiss seemed to be waiting for the monster to get clear to do something but the Echo wasn't playing along, using Durence itself as a shield.

"Delta? You know Delta? Which one of us lucky kids got to be the murder-hobo basement? I remember you, Beta, and the Shattered One, but there were a few others that came and went in our 'special' class. Oh let me guess... is it Bob? Was it Aerith? Maybe it was Justin? Oh maybe it was Orrin? No wait, they had a stupid naming system. So it has to be someone starting with 'D'..." Gamma mused excitedly as he danced in Alpha's hands.

Alpha wished he would focus since it was hard to run in narrow streets with a sword that has an attention disorder with the need for attention.

"Miss D," Alpha commented simply. He blinked as Gamma turned into a pocket knife, as if to shrink in on himself, their voice turning more feminine in panic.

"Wait. Miss... D?" Gamma trailed off.

"Yep," Alpha responded with a small smile.

"Miss D? The one who taught us? That Miss D? Someone left her in charge of the arts and crafts?" Gamma asked in sheer horror.

"She's a Dungeon," Alpha reminded.

"Wait Delta... Dungeon... Miss D.... oh I hate them so much, but Alphie! Listen! Dungeons craft!" Gamma stressed. Alpha didn't see the issue. Delta made... interesting things as far as he knew.

"Miss D once got given the newest software for a computer, a sort of magic box don't ask, and she caused it to blue screen the school system because she tried to open paint on it!" Gamma said and Alpha had to admit, it sounded Delta.

"And that time the school had a raffle fair and she got into it really hard and wasted a thousand tickets on a box that contained socks? Then she spent her last ticket in some game the next day and won a hog bike? All she did was call it Bacon and that was it. She didn't ride it!" Gamma went on as Alpha turned down the street and chased the monster.

Delta hadn't really changed due to her hardships and Alpha felt even warmer at the thought of his teacher refusing to change.

"And we can't forget about her time she was in charge of the Christmas - funky holiday, don't ask - show and she forgot the script so had us reenact scenes from her 'books' where Santa came down to 'cheer' the poor mother up by giving her 'gifts'. It was a great show but I couldn't stop cringing," Gamma admitted and Alpha recalled the spider-dances, Waddles, the bar, the frogs, the circus, the feast hall, and more.

Nope, she hadn't changed at all.

"Hopefully, she was second to wake and had time to mature and become the dangerous Dungeon we all need right now to hide in. Filled with dangerous traps, tricky floors, and maybe a hundred levels deep!" Gamma added with deep hope and Alpha nearly stumbled head-first into a wall at that.

He had no idea how to break it to the sword.

At all.

---

"Aren't you going with them?" Amenstar asked nervously as the demonic feeling girl crossed her arms at the sight of Gamma and Alpha vanishing from sight.

"I was gonna defend the town but they charged off first and I don't wanna be seen as a copy-cat. I would totally do it, but I just don't feel like it now," the girl commented and she looked strange. Intentionally inhuman as if she was made wrong on purpose, flawed so heavily it turned around to be charming again.

Deciding to choose imperfections like a square jaw and crooked nose over picturesque beauty.

Amenstar admired that.

"I'm Amenstar, my dad is a saint," he said, hoping to get that little detail out of the way before it became awkward. The girl eyed him.

"The name's Beta. The closest thing I had to a father figure is someone I intend to devour and use his carcass to build a throne out of," she said bluntly and Amenstar imagined her sitting on a brutal throne of bone and sinew.

"Awesome," he whispered and Beta blinked at him, looking a little more unsure. One of the insane Calcs rushed at Amenstar and Beta turned, her hand morphing like flowing liquid into a giant black claw that swiped through him, causing him to fall to the ground with no obvious wound.

"He's not dead. I just slapped his soul and took something from him," Beta said calmly as her arm bulged with veins as something dark was absorbed by her.

"Are you a blue mage?" Amenstar asked, wondering if Poppy knew her?

"Blue Mage? Do I look blue?" Beta asked in annoyance as she turned into a scaly-looking snake woman that rose to eight feet with crimson scales.

"You look cool," Amenstar said with a slight feeling that Beta 'looked' like a snake, but had no bones... no blood. Something else that made his skin tingle.

"Hm this is a new feeling. Slight respect for someone else... shame it's buried under my annoyance of people who won't shut up!" Beta turned and roared at the fighting, her voice shaking many of them and a dozen Calcs fell to the ground, black lights being drawn to Beta as she inhaled sharply.

Beta could just suck the souls out of people!

Amenstar hadn't seen anything this cool since he found a five-head snake skeleton once... or it was a five-tailed worm, he never did find out.

"Hey kid, wanna see something cool?" Beta asked as she unfolded one bat wing and a dark duck wing.

"Try and stop me," Amenstar grinned as he glowed with a deathly aura.

"This is why I prefer death over life... so much freedom!" Beta said as she flapped into the air like a multi-shaped creature that looked like some broken Dungeon had spit it out one day.

Amenstar's smile faded as a dozen Fairplay officers began to freak out immensely.

"It's a blue mage!" Amenstar called and a few of the officers hesitated.

"I AM FROM HELL ITSELF! I WILL SUCK YOUR SOULS OUT AND FEED THEM TO MY NEW FRIEND! MR DEATH!" Beta screeched like a bird, voice shaking the town.

"She's just dramatic," Amenstar tried to say quickly.

"BURN ALL LIFE! ALL LIFE UNTIL WE ARE FREE!" Beta continued to cry and Amenstar gave up, clubbing a Fairplay officer on the back of the head, making his own skull shake his brain until the man lost consciousness.

"Alpha's friends are strange," he decided.

He continued to skull shake the officers as panicking people made stupid choices and it was easier to make their unconscious bodies walk themselves to the safety of his church home.

One couldn't call this necromancer 'lazy bones'!