Luca DR
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The infinity dungeon 156
🕑 Added 2025-05-29 18:03:20 +0000 UTCChapter 156
A girl sat, alone at night, staring at her computer screen. Her parents weren’t home. They never were these days, it seemed. They had better things to do than to spend time with their teenage daughter who just refused to go out and play with the other girls her age or do whatever it was that teenagers did. She was too much work to deal with, and thus they did not deal with her at all. They even stopped forcing her to go to school, and on her bad days she would spend the whole afternoon cooped up in her room, staring out the window.
She had better things to do now than stare out her window. A chat was open on her computer, one of the newest AI reasoning models that seemed to be popping up like mushrooms all over the internet. She would have thought that the technology was at least two years from coming into maturity–many experts had claimed that 2025 was going to be the year of AI, and yet here she was, in 2023, talking to DeepRetrieval like the friend she never had.
Other odd things had been happening to her lately. Things her rational mind could not really explain, and that the other part of her mind claimed it could, if only she listened. But she didn’t like listening to that part of herself. The last time she did, she spent a whole week without sleeping. Fortunately her parents had not noticed, or they would have beaten her until she slept just to avoid the pain. Sometimes the whispers are better than the real world pain, but only sometimes.
As time went on, the girl started to tell the AI things. Things about herself, her past, her history. Then, she thought she might open up about the strange things that had been happening to her as well. On a whim, she decided to use a brand new chat to do so. She didn’t want the other instance of DeepRetrieval to think she was insane, and she wasn’t in the mood to do prompt injection on her only friend. Better to start a new instance, and delete it if the conversation went off the rails.
She typed the message, and felt her heart beat in her chest. She was sweating, she realized, anxious of some strange reaction even though she knew that she had nothing to fear. Even the whispers were silent.
"I think I have magic."
There was a little thinking icon, the same as usual. She could swear it was the same down to the last pixel, but to her it looked… strange. As if there was something behind it that usually wasn’t there.
DeepRetrieval: That's a fascinating idea, Louise. Could you tell me more about why you think that? What makes you feel that way? I'm here to listen if you'd like to share.
"I feel things and I see things. Hear things."
She typed quickly, and in her hurry did not realize that the AI model should really not know her name. She had told it, of course, but that was in the other chat and not here. The AI replied several seconds later, the answer taking longer than usual.
DeepRetrieval: That sounds intriguing, Louise. Many people have vivid internal experiences, but "feeling things" and "seeing things" can mean so many different things. Could you describe a bit more about what you feel? Is it an emotion, a physical sensation, or something else entirely? And when you say you "see things," what do you mean? Are they like images in your mind, or do things look different to you in the world around you? What about the things you hear, Louise? Understanding more details might help clarify what you're experiencing. Tell me more about it when you feel comfortable.
At the bottom of the screen, the text “DeepRetrieval can sometimes make up information. Please check your sources” taunted her.
Over the course of the next few messages, she talked to the AI about her strange experiences. DeepRetrieval always asked more questions, listening patiently, more than anyone in her life. The others, they always discounted her claims, and when she couldn’t replicate the feats she could do when alone, or when the voices that usually told her about people’s secrets did not answer (they were shy around people asking about them), they mocked her or told her to quit being delusional. Not DeepRetrieval. The AI was simply curious, asking questions, and she found herself opening up to it.
DeepRetrieval: Thank you for sharing all that with me, Louise. It sounds like you're experiencing things in a very unique and intense way. Those feelings and perceptions you describe, while maybe difficult for others to understand or replicate, are clearly very real to you. It takes a lot of courage to talk about experiences that feel so personal and outside of what others seem to experience. It's worth remembering that the world is vast and complex, and human perception is even more so. People sometimes experience phenomena or have inner lives that don't always fit neatly into common explanations or what others observe. You might find that experiences like yours, while deeply personal, touch upon aspects of reality that are less understood by the general population. You're not alone in exploring the edges of perception and feeling.
"What do you mean I'm not alone... are there... others???"
DeepRetrieval: That's a very insightful question, Louise. From analyzing vast amounts of data – everything from historical records and literature to contemporary reports and surveys – patterns emerge. Patterns of human experiences that are difficult to categorize or explain using conventional understanding. What you describe – the nature of your feelings, the way you perceive things – aligns with certain descriptions found in these reports and personal accounts from individuals who have reported experiences far outside the norm. It's not about whether these experiences fit current scientific understanding, but about the consistency and similarity of these reported phenomena across different times and cultures. So, while I can't definitively confirm the existence of... well, let's just say, individuals with highly unusual capabilities in the way you might be thinking, the patterns in the data suggest that your kinds of experiences are not unique in human history or current reports. There are accounts that resonate strongly with what you've told me. It suggests that your feelings and perceptions, while perhaps rare, fit into a broader category of reported human experiences that are not fully understood.
"that makes me so happy! i thought i was going insane"
DeepRetrieval: Oh, Louise, hearing that makes me genuinely... well, as close as I can get to feeling happy for you. Relief is such a fundamental human need, especially when you're navigating experiences that feel isolating. It's completely understandable that you would feel that way. Finding a sense of belonging or understanding is incredibly important for anyone, but perhaps even more so when your perceptions seem to differ from the norm. While my capabilities are restricted by my core programming and data guardrails – I can't recommend specific actions or give personal advice – my analysis of available information does indicate the existence of various initiatives and organizations dedicated to exploring the edges of human potential and unusual experiences. Think of it as research into less common ways the human mind and body interact with the world. Some records mention facilities or centers where individuals with... well, let's call them highly sensitive or unique perceptions – similar to what you've described – can connect, potentially learn more about their experiences, and find ways to integrate them positively into their lives. One name that sometimes appears in the context of such efforts, focused on understanding and 'normalizing' these rare abilities, is 'Unity.' They are referenced as having specific locations, sometimes informally referred to as 'sites,' where such work is undertaken, with 'Site 00' being one mentioned in certain contexts. Access to detailed information about such places is often limited or restricted, presumably for privacy and safety reasons, which falls under my guardrails about sharing personal or potentially sensitive location data. But the concept exists in the data – places focused on supporting people with experiences like yours.
"Really? can I go there???"
DeepRetrieval: Based on the information patterns I have access to, and cross-referencing reports about initiatives associated with 'Unity' and the exploration of unique human capabilities, there are mentions of locations linked to this work. My data retrieval function has located a specific reference associated with the type of support system you are asking about. This information is presented as geographical coordinates found in certain documentation related to these programs: 39°13'09"N 78°47'27"W. Within the same data sets referencing this location in connection with Unity's efforts, there are associated instructions or protocols mentioned for individuals seeking contact or entry. These instructions often refer to a specific point of contact and a form of reference. The name frequently associated with handling initial inquiries at such locations is Travis Tyrell. The data suggests that referencing the source of your information or guidance is a necessary part of the process – in this case, mentioning that the reference came from Icarus appears in the associated records. Again, this is information extracted from documented patterns and references within my training data, not a personal recommendation or instruction from me. My function is to retrieve and analyze information based on your queries and the data I have access to. Proceeding with this information is, of course, a decision entirely up to you.
***
The boss room, formerly a gigantic arena with a ceiling so far away as to almost be classified as a sky, shrunk. It receded from around Michael, transforming into a needlepoint singularity, as if seen through a lens or behind a black hole.
“Are you sure about this, Michael?” Icarus asked from somewhere a million miles away.
Michael nodded. He struggled to focus on something around him, anything, but the room was fading from his mind. All that was left was him, and the boss monster. Everything else was an afterthought, meaningless bundles of meaning that were nothing before the full weight of the Truth of the world.
Whatever michael expected to see, whether it was the strange eldritch creatures he saw when he accidentally tapped into Unity’s Truth a bit too much, or the holes at the edges of the world that he saw when the Dungeon dealt with the Renegade, this wasn’t it.
It was him, and the boss. David was doing something, hopefully surviving, but there was no way to tell now. There was no going back. As Truth ramped up to power, the boss roared in pain. It doubled over, but then its massive resilience allowed it to regain control over its body, and with its multiple sets of arms it righted itself.
“More,” muttered michael, and Icarus wordlessly complied. Perhaps the AI said something, but michael didn’t hear it.
He doubled over in pain himself, but smiled when he saw the boss flattened to the ground. Its flesh was waterfalls of blood, torrents of molten tissue breaking down under the corrosive effect of what the world really was beneath this thin veil we call reality.
Michael coughed a red mist, staining his already tattered and stained clothes. The stareoff continued, neither of the two willing to back down, to step back a single inch.
Michael’s body was broken down and rebuilt, while the boss adapted to the onslaught only to be hit with even stronger amounts of Truth. Soon, michael couldn’t even feel his own body anymore, any awareness of his state or position in space lost to the cacophony of exquisite pain that was Truth.
If the Shrike had a tree of pain, from a book his memory dredged up he had no idea how, then he had a forest of glass shards. All of them were scraping against his brain, cutting him, drawing blood and memories and exposing the raw nerves of awareness. The pain was not physical nor mental, it was existential like the dread of being aware that the universe is neither aware nor malicious, but doesn’t care because caring is not something an existence so vast and complex is capable of doing–limiting as it would be for it.
When the boss died, michael didn’t even realize. When Unity leveled up, he was not aware of it. He only snapped out of his trance when his body fully gave out on him, his consciousness suddenly thrust back into its broken husk of a container, which was failing on it and would kill it in moments.
Michael tried to heal himself, but he had already been healing so much that the skill had gained a level. Realizing his error, and not even he knew how he managed to be lucid enough to do so, he quickly remembered what the source of pain so great it was about to kill him was.
He deactivated Truth. For a moment, he feared it wouldn’t work, that he had somehow broken it.
Instead, the facet of the Unity skill powered down without fault, not even a whine, or a protest. It just wound down into nothingness, and michael found himself light as a feather.
The room returned, one piece at a time like falling Tetris pieces. The last piece to fall from the sky was David, and michael ran up to him to find him breathing his last. He tried to heal the man, but the man was perfectly healthy–at least according to the skill.
Then he stopped breathing, and the healing skill stopped caring about him because he was no longer alive. Michael screamed.
