| I disagree. I disagree with the voices that say that we live inside the womb of the machination of carnage. Yes, blood is spilled day in and day out in order to fuel our lives. Yes, people die every single day in the dungeons, hundreds of them across the world. — But what does this process result in? It results in full stomachs. It results in having beds to sleep in at night, surrounded by loved ones we can keep warm. It results in the glow of every smile you see outside, in the shine of every warm summer day that radiates in through the windows of your stay, in the warm crunching of bread as we sit to eat our meager meals, surrounded by people and faces who are anything but. This process isn’t one of gore and destruction. It is one of fertilization. Yes, mourn the dead who died to give us this bounty; wail for them. But don’t forget what they hold up for us to take from down in their graves. To not do so, to not cherish the fruits of their grim labor, would be a disservice to all of their sacrifices. |
~ Former Finance minister of the nation, Svetch Baldko, during his inaugural speech upon accepting his new position
| ~ [Azaza] ~ |
| Female, Orc, Classless (Child) |
| Location: The Tower Grounds |
Azaza sits beneath the tree, staring up towards the tower as the sky glows alight with the colors of rainbows that she has never seen the likes of before.
The little town comes to a stop as hundreds of eyes rise up towards the spectacle.
It’s been days now since she and her friend got trapped up here on the island.
They had come up the staircase, even if they weren’t supposed to, and now there’s no way back down.
— Her stomach growls.
The girl is distracted from the incredible sight of the heavens by something much simpler.
They haven’t had any food in a couple of days.
The people here in the town aren’t that nice. They tried asking for a handout once, but the dwarf who they asked yelled at them and chased them out of his store. They haven’t been brave enough to try talking to anyone else since, even if they can smell fires roasting meats and stews boiling with berries and tubers that the people harvest from the island.
They can’t do that.
There are monsters in the forest, and she’s just a child with no class. The two of them are too young to fight anything here. So they’re stuck in this town, but there’s nothing for them to do.
She leans back against the tree, watching the sky.
Should they try to steal something to eat?
The girl looks over to the side, to her friend. He’s younger than she is, and she's the one who dragged him up here, even if they were forbidden from coming to the tower again. He’s just sleeping the hunger away. But that won’t work forever.
A shadow blocks her view of the tower.
Azaza looks up at the silhouette hovering over her. It’s an elf, wearing a priestess’ robes. She smells like birds, though.
“Here,” says the priestess, holding out a bowl of what looks like a heavy soup, full of thick slices of vegetables and mushrooms. “You’re hungry, right?”
Azaza blinks and looks at her and then at the food.
— Without thinking, she grabs the bowl and starts drinking from it.
“Would you like to leave?” asks the woman, letting go of the bowl.
Azaza stops and then lowers the bowl, looking at her. After a second, she turns and nudges her sleeping friend, holding the bowl his way.
— He dives at it, much the same way that she did.
The girl looks up at the priestess. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you a second one and then we’ll get you home, okay?”
“Who are you?” asks Azaza.
The woman shakes her head. “I’m just a follower of Isaiah,” says the woman, sliding a lock of light hair back behind her ear. “Sorry that it took so long,” she says, holding a hand out to help the girl up. “Even the gods aren’t perfect.”
— Azaza finally loses her calm and breaks down, crying, as one would expect a child of her age to have done a while ago already, as she grabs the priestess so that she can't escape from her word.
| ~ [Isaiah] ~ |
They watch from above as Scion escorts the children away.
“You know, I need Scion to feed the monsters,” says Red. “I mean… humans are monsters and all, but it’s not what I intended when I made her schedule.”
Isaiah hovers in the sky, looking down towards the island. “Red, they are children,” begins Isaiah. “For me, constrain your cruelty this once. Please do not ever give me cause to have to think less of you,” it says. “It would hurt my heart.”
Red sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose for a while, her shoulders drooping. “You know that I mean it when I say that I want to kill every last human, right?” she asks. “I’m not being sarcastic or dramatic or edgy. It’s literally my deepest wish.”
“And why is that?” asks Isaiah.
“What…?” Red looks around the world before looking back at Isaiah. “Why is that?” she asks incredulously. “Is that a serious question?”
“It is,” affirms Isaiah.
“Really? After everything that’s happened, you don’t think that you can begin to try to understand why I would want them all to die?” she asks, placing her hands on her hips and leaning in towards Isaiah.
Isaiah looks back at her. “Oh. No. I understand, Red,” says Isaiah. “I truly understand why you would come to that exact desire.” It instinctively holds out a hand for her to land on. However, it realizes, after its quick moment of thoughtlessness, that she is far too large to do so now. An old habit that it seems to repeat with many of the uthra. Instead, it looks down at its now open palm and curls its taloned fingers closed. “— I just do not understand why you would keep it still after all the goodness that we have also seen.” Isaiah shakes its head. “Can there really never be peace in your heart?”
“No,” replies Red, getting straight to the point. “Fuck them. And it doesn’t matter how poetic a speech you give, as good as they are,” says the uthra. “I’m not changing my mind.”
“…I see,” says Isaiah, watching its fingers glisten in the light from the sky above.
A hand places itself on top of its closed fist.
It’s quiet for a moment.
“— I didn’t get what you got, okay?” says Red, breaking the silence. Isaiah lifts its head, looking at the uthra, who is hovering there awkwardly with stiff shoulders, staring off into the distance, somewhere far away to the east. “When the thing that you loved got taken from you, you got to have your whole spiel here. I mean, look!” says Red, gesturing down at the massive tower surrounded by life abundant with her other hand. “Fuck me, right? You got to see your chicks get born and grow and leave and blah blah blah — a big old happy ending for floppy-winged, worm-eating, chirp-chirp Isaiah, right?” she asks. Her fingers clench down tighter. With her other hand, Red spins back towards Isaiah, pointing at herself with her thumb as she glares. "Well, not all of us get that, okay?!” she snaps. “Some of us just get bent over by the universe, so let me have this without giving me a lecture every time!” barks Red. “— This is all that I have left.”
Isaiah tilts its head. What an odd situation.
Red does have a point. She is correct that it itself had been given a rare gift that most of the sufferers of this world never receive — a chance for the redemption of its heart.
“Anyways,” begins Red. She pulls her hand away and crosses her arms. “Listen. I think something’s up with the homunculi,” she says. “I’m sure something is fucky, but I can’t place my finger on it.”
Isaiah nods. “Red,” it says. “They are monsters under my control. I do not believe that they would be…” It stops for a moment. “— ‘fucky’,” says Isaiah, not sure if it should be parroting the word.
Red shakes her head. “No, hear me out,” she says. “I’ve been flying around and watching them, but every time I look or try to spy on them, they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing!” Isaiah tilts its head, watching her with worry in its eyes. “— I know! I know…” says Red, seeing its confused look as she looks back over her shoulder.
“Red,” repeats Isaiah. It places a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m not paranoid, okay?!” asks Red. “I know they’re up to something, those squirrelly fucks! And if they are, your humans who you love so much aren’t spilling the beans!” she says, accusingly. “They know. I’m sure of it. They’re up to something.”
Isaiah sighs. “Red,” says Isaiah again. “I accept and understand your reasoning for your anger,” says Isaiah. “But this new process of your thoughts troubles me even more.”
“Just look!” argues Red, spinning around and swiping its arm off of her shoulder. “Use your zappy bird eyes and look at what Beulah is doing RIGHT NOW!” she snaps. “Please!”
Isaiah stares at her desperate expression and then closes its eyes, not able to say ‘no’ to that face.
Beulah stands in the corridor of the shrine on floor eighteen and sweeps with the broom with a bored look in his eyes.
Isaiah switches its vision, looking through the eyes of one of the homunculi in the shrine.
The shrine-maiden stands there, perfectly still. Her eyes are blank and void, and she stands in front of a wall, staring at it from several inches away without moving or shifting in any manner at all.
It’s like she’s as much a piece of the house as any beam or door present there. She is simply a static and dead thing.
Isaiah opens its eyes.
It shakes its head. “Red. Things are exactly as they ought to be.”
“Birdshit!” yells the uthra. “I can smell fuckery all the way up here!” she shouts, clenching her fists.
Isaiah lifts a hand, stopping her. “Red. For you, I will speak to Beulah and the others myself. I will go and look at the Homunculi myself.” It looks at her in concern. “But why is this such a serious topic now all of a sudden?” it asks. Isaiah looks her over. “Is it because they, the homunculi, are like humans?”
“I… - shut up!” says Red, rubbing her face. “It has nothing to do with that!” She points at herself. “You’re just floating there, thinking I’m babbling a bunch of crap,” says Red, pointing at herself. “But I’m the one trying to keep this place safe, because you aren’t going to do what needs to be done when the time comes!”
Isaiah looks at her furious expression, which certainly signals anger and hurt, but also confusion. This topic means a lot to her.
Ah.
It thinks that it sees now.
It sees now the reason for Red’s particular zest for life, to phrase it kindly. Her intense hatred for the humans, this new thing with the homunculi who resemble them – they likely all stem from the same place.
“Thank you, Red,” says Isaiah, grabbing and holding her in an embrace as its hand runs consolingly over her back.
“Ah, sheesh, really?” asks Red, groaning. “Gross. Can’t you just… yell at me?” she asks. “I really want you to yell at me.”
“Next time,” says Isaiah, feeling a warm face press itself against the bottom of its shoulder. “For now, you must suffer this, I am afraid.”
It looks down at the world around them, at this little slice of it that they have managed to make. Yes, it is ‘Isaiah’s’, in the sense that it was the thing that became the spark for all of this. But that spark was nursed and tended to by Red, first and foremost.
And this is where the intensity of her concerning new nature might perhaps stem from. The fact that this place, itself, the people, the tower, everything and all of it is now, for the second time in her existence ‘all that she has left’ and this new thing can be taken away very, very quickly, just as the old thing was.
“Thank you for doing what I do not have the strength to do,” says Isaiah. “When the hour comes when blood must be spilled, which I am not strong enough to draw, then I will depend on you, Red.”
“S- shut up!” barks a voice from in front of itself, and Isaiah feels something bite its body.
A significant oddity.
But not everybody knows what to do in such situations. Some people have only ever learned how to respond to negative forces.
| ~ [Beulah] ~ |
| Human, Male, Thief |
| Location: The Tower, Floor Eighteen - The Shrine |
“Beulah,” says a quiet voice from next to him. Beulah turns his head, holding onto the broom as he looks at the shrine-maiden standing there, stiff and still like a statue as he walks past her. They don’t hide and run from him anymore. Although sometimes, they will use their tails as barriers when they become overstimulated. The middle shrine-maiden stands there.
She holds out her hands, and Beulah looks down at what she’s holding.
“I found a bug,” she whispers. There’s no reason for her to be whispering, they’re alone. But they just have trouble understanding tones and volume sometimes.
Beulah stares at the thing in her open palms that is, indeed, a bug. It looks like some random cricket from outside. Some adventurer must have dragged it into the tower with them. Likely, it was clinging to their bag and just jumped off here.
He looks back at the shrine-maiden, who hides her lower face beneath a tail, staring at him as she holds the cricket out his way. “It went ‘ie ie ie’,” she explains.
“Nice,” says Beulah.
“Ie ie ie,” repeats the shrine-maiden.
Beulah nods.
Makes sense to him.
“Ie ie ie,” repeats the man. The shrine-maiden giggles.
The cricket hops away.
She gasps, exploding in a puff of smoke as she transforms into a fox and chases after it, leaving Beulah standing there, watching as the two of them disappear. Then his eyes wander down to the floor, covered in fresh hairs and fur that he sweeps away into the pile.
| ~ [???] ~ |
| Human, Female, Monk |
| Location: The Tower Graveyard |
She sits in the graveyard, meditating amongst the haunting spirits that fill the gaps between the many tombstones. She sits next to the graves of the compatriots who she had fought side by side with during her time as an assailant on the tower.
With crossed legs, her hands on her knees, a straight back and a slightly bowed head, she inhales deeply once more, holding the breath before returning it back out to the world from which she had taken it.
She does mourn the loss of these lives around her. They were not friends or family, merely work acquaintances.
But the loss of life, she sees now, was entirely avoidable. None of these people needed to die. Isaiah had already opened the door for them to step through, but they, lost in the rigidity of the confines of their lives as dungeon-inspectors, had been unable to see it for what it was.
In those days, she had lost her composure. The things she trained for during her life and youth had become buried under the weight of responsibility, burden, and purpose.
– Something places itself down onto her lap.
The monk opens her eyes, looking at the face below. An uthra lies there on the damp grass of the graveyard, with orange hair and a dress of the same color.
“What’chya doing?” asks Orange.
“Meditating,” replies the monk and closes her eyes again to return to her practice.
– An open hand lightly slaps itself against her face, clinging there like a spider to a wall. The monk opens her eyes again, staring through the fingers that obscure her sight.
“Why?” asks the uthra.
“To clear my mind,” replies the monk. “To stay sharp and in focus in all moments of life.”
“...Huh…” The uthra, lying on her back, lifts a leg into the air. She focuses, pursing her lips as she presses herself back, trying to get her foot to touch the monk without moving her hand from her face or her back from the ground.
“What are you doing?” asks the monk.
Orange sticks the tip of her tongue out of her mouth, pressing her lips around it as she focuses. “Trying to touch the top of your head with my foot,” explains the uthra, doing her best to do just that.
The monk, fairly certain she won’t be able to meditate with this creature here, decides to engage. “Why?” she asks, looking down at the head resting on her lap.
Orange stops, freezing half-way through her contortion, and the two of them stare at each other for a time in silence.
“You wanna go fishing?” asks Orange, entirely out of the blue.
“Pardon?” asks the monk.
Orange lets her leg and her hand flop down, and she lays there, spread eagle as she moves her arms and legs up and down, as if trying to make a snow-angel. “I’ve never been fishing before. It seems like it could be fun,” explains the uthra.
“I suppose it is, as long as you are not a fish,” she replies.
Orange gasps, her eyes going wide.
The uthra spins over onto her hands and knees, looking at the monk. “Could you imagine being a fish?” she asks. She blows up her cheeks, puffing them out as she stares. The monk tilts her head, staring at the odd creature. She has had encounters with Isaiah’s uthra now and then. They are certainly interesting. But this one seems particularly… excitable and unable to focus in the least.
Slowly, she lifts her hands, pressing a finger against the uthra’s face.
“Ffff–” air leaks out of Orange’s pursed lips as the monk’s finger deflates her cheek. “- ish.” They stare at each other for a time. “Fish,” repeats Orange, nodding.
“I see,” replies the monk, looking at the uthra.
Orange nods again.
“Okay. Bye,” she says, and then shoots off, vanishing in a blast of energy as she flies into the fog of the graveyard.
How… strange. The monk looks into the distance for a time and then resumes with her prior posture, closing her eyes and returning to her meditation.
– Something wet flops onto her lap.
“I’m back. I found a fish,” says Orange.
The monk stares at the fresh fish that seems to have just been ripped straight from the river a second ago. It flops around in her lap. She looks back up at the uthra, seeing that this will go nowhere productive if she forces the issue of silence.
“Would you like to take a walk together?” asks the monk. Orange’s eyes go wide, and she nods excitedly. “Very well,” replies the woman, getting up. She hands the fish to Orange. “But put this back into the river, please. I think it does not enjoy being outside of the water.”
“OKAY!” yells the uthra, for some reason. She snatches the fish back and vanishes. An instant later, she returns. “So what’s it like to have dead friends?” she asks. “Are you sad?”
The monk lifts an eyebrow. “This is a poor question to ask someone,” replies the woman, nodding her head as she starts to walk.
Orange flies after her. “Oh.” She hovers next to her as she walks to nowhere in particular. Walking can be just as good as meditation. The calming of the mind, the quieting of the hissing voices that persist throughout the days of one’s life, is the intent of the practice. Both meditation and walking are ample tools to do this, but so can any other focused practice such as combat training or any activity that leads to a focusing and silencing of the mind, allowing one to be with oneself without distractions.
“Sorry,” says Orange. “Red yells at me too. She says I’m annoying. Can we not be friends now?”
The monk looks over at the uthra, staring at her, perplexingly, almost frightened face as they move through the graveyard. “The point of a walk is to walk,” replies the monk. Orange blinks and then lowers herself down onto her feet, holding her arms unsteadily at her side as if she had never used her legs before and had no idea how to stand right.
“Like this?” she asks.
“Close,” replies the monk.
“Can’t we just fly?” asks Orange.
“I can not fly,” replies the monk.
“Oh…” Orange stares down at her feet as she stands there with bowed legs, like a dancer ready to spring into the air. “I mean, have you practiced?”
The monk stares at Orange, waddling alongside her. The uthra laughs as she looks down at the ground as she walks like a proud bird. “Look! I’m Isaiah!” she says, flapping her wings.
“Come on,” says the monk. “The river is not that far away.”
“Huh? The river?” asks Orange. “Why are we going there? I thought we were walking?” She shakes her head. “I can’t swim.”
The monk looks back at her, tilting her head. The creature is very lively. With this kind of energy, perhaps there is no stopping it? Perhaps channeling and redirecting it is the only way to survive its full onslaught in a healthy fashion? “Then we’ll have to ask the fish about it when we get there,” she replies, allowing herself to make a joke.
Orange gasps and laughs. “Good thing I put it back into the water!” she says, ‘walking’ alongside the monk.
“Mm,” replies the monk.
The two of them have a nice walk together and, while it isn’t exactly meditative and peaceful, it is certainly… a learning experience.
The fish has little to teach them, however, having swam away as fast as it could and being nowhere to be found by the time they get to the river.
| I disagree. I disagree with the voices that say that we live inside the womb of the machination of carnage. Yes, blood is spilled day in and day out in order to fuel our lives. Yes, people die every single day in the dungeons, hundreds of them across the world. — But what does this process result in? It results in full stomachs. It results in having beds to sleep in at night, surrounded by loved ones we can keep warm. It results in the glow of every smile you see outside, in the shine of every warm summer day that radiates in through the windows of your stay, in the warm crunching of bread as we sit to eat our meager meals, surrounded by people and faces who are anything but. This process isn’t one of gore and destruction. It is one of fertilization. Yes, mourn the dead who died to give us this bounty; wail for them. But don’t forget what they hold up for us to take from down in their graves. To not do so, to not cherish the fruits of their grim labor, would be a disservice to all of their sacrifices. |
~ Former Finance minister of the nation, Svetch Baldko, during his inaugural speech upon accepting his new position
| ~ [Azaza] ~ |
| Female, Orc, Classless (Child) |
| Location: The Tower Grounds |
Azaza sits beneath the tree, staring up towards the tower as the sky glows alight with the colors of rainbows that she has never seen the likes of before.
The little town comes to a stop as hundreds of eyes rise up towards the spectacle.
It’s been days now since she and her friend got trapped up here on the island.
They had come up the staircase, even if they weren’t supposed to, and now there’s no way back down.
— Her stomach growls.
The girl is distracted from the incredible sight of the heavens by something much simpler.
They haven’t had any food in a couple of days.
The people here in the town aren’t that nice. They tried asking for a handout once, but the dwarf who they asked yelled at them and chased them out of his store. They haven’t been brave enough to try talking to anyone else since, even if they can smell fires roasting meats and stews boiling with berries and tubers that the people harvest from the island.
They can’t do that.
There are monsters in the forest, and she’s just a child with no class. The two of them are too young to fight anything here. So they’re stuck in this town, but there’s nothing for them to do.
She leans back against the tree, watching the sky.
Should they try to steal something to eat?
The girl looks over to the side, to her friend. He’s younger than she is, and she's the one who dragged him up here, even if they were forbidden from coming to the tower again. He’s just sleeping the hunger away. But that won’t work forever.
A shadow blocks her view of the tower.
Azaza looks up at the silhouette hovering over her. It’s an elf, wearing a priestess’ robes. She smells like birds, though.
“Here,” says the priestess, holding out a bowl of what looks like a heavy soup, full of thick slices of vegetables and mushrooms. “You’re hungry, right?”
Azaza blinks and looks at her and then at the food.
— Without thinking, she grabs the bowl and starts drinking from it.
“Would you like to leave?” asks the woman, letting go of the bowl.
Azaza stops and then lowers the bowl, looking at her. After a second, she turns and nudges her sleeping friend, holding the bowl his way.
— He dives at it, much the same way that she did.
The girl looks up at the priestess. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you a second one and then we’ll get you home, okay?”
“Who are you?” asks Azaza.
The woman shakes her head. “I’m just a follower of Isaiah,” says the woman, sliding a lock of light hair back behind her ear. “Sorry that it took so long,” she says, holding a hand out to help the girl up. “Even the gods aren’t perfect.”
— Azaza finally loses her calm and breaks down, crying, as one would expect a child of her age to have done a while ago already, as she grabs the priestess so that she can't escape from her word.
| ~ [Isaiah] ~ |
They watch from above as Scion escorts the children away.
“You know, I need Scion to feed the monsters,” says Red. “I mean… humans are monsters and all, but it’s not what I intended when I made her schedule.”
Isaiah hovers in the sky, looking down towards the island. “Red, they are children,” begins Isaiah. “For me, constrain your cruelty this once. Please do not ever give me cause to have to think less of you,” it says. “It would hurt my heart.”
Red sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose for a while, her shoulders drooping. “You know that I mean it when I say that I want to kill every last human, right?” she asks. “I’m not being sarcastic or dramatic or edgy. It’s literally my deepest wish.”
“And why is that?” asks Isaiah.
“What…?” Red looks around the world before looking back at Isaiah. “Why is that?” she asks incredulously. “Is that a serious question?”
“It is,” affirms Isaiah.
“Really? After everything that’s happened, you don’t think that you can begin to try to understand why I would want them all to die?” she asks, placing her hands on her hips and leaning in towards Isaiah.
Isaiah looks back at her. “Oh. No. I understand, Red,” says Isaiah. “I truly understand why you would come to that exact desire.” It instinctively holds out a hand for her to land on. However, it realizes, after its quick moment of thoughtlessness, that she is far too large to do so now. An old habit that it seems to repeat with many of the uthra. Instead, it looks down at its now open palm and curls its taloned fingers closed. “— I just do not understand why you would keep it still after all the goodness that we have also seen.” Isaiah shakes its head. “Can there really never be peace in your heart?”
“No,” replies Red, getting straight to the point. “Fuck them. And it doesn’t matter how poetic a speech you give, as good as they are,” says the uthra. “I’m not changing my mind.”
“…I see,” says Isaiah, watching its fingers glisten in the light from the sky above.
A hand places itself on top of its closed fist.
It’s quiet for a moment.
“— I didn’t get what you got, okay?” says Red, breaking the silence. Isaiah lifts its head, looking at the uthra, who is hovering there awkwardly with stiff shoulders, staring off into the distance, somewhere far away to the east. “When the thing that you loved got taken from you, you got to have your whole spiel here. I mean, look!” says Red, gesturing down at the massive tower surrounded by life abundant with her other hand. “Fuck me, right? You got to see your chicks get born and grow and leave and blah blah blah — a big old happy ending for floppy-winged, worm-eating, chirp-chirp Isaiah, right?” she asks. Her fingers clench down tighter. With her other hand, Red spins back towards Isaiah, pointing at herself with her thumb as she glares. "Well, not all of us get that, okay?!” she snaps. “Some of us just get bent over by the universe, so let me have this without giving me a lecture every time!” barks Red. “— This is all that I have left.”
Isaiah tilts its head. What an odd situation.
Red does have a point. She is correct that it itself had been given a rare gift that most of the sufferers of this world never receive — a chance for the redemption of its heart.
“Anyways,” begins Red. She pulls her hand away and crosses her arms. “Listen. I think something’s up with the homunculi,” she says. “I’m sure something is fucky, but I can’t place my finger on it.”
Isaiah nods. “Red,” it says. “They are monsters under my control. I do not believe that they would be…” It stops for a moment. “— ‘fucky’,” says Isaiah, not sure if it should be parroting the word.
Red shakes her head. “No, hear me out,” she says. “I’ve been flying around and watching them, but every time I look or try to spy on them, they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing!” Isaiah tilts its head, watching her with worry in its eyes. “— I know! I know…” says Red, seeing its confused look as she looks back over her shoulder.
“Red,” repeats Isaiah. It places a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m not paranoid, okay?!” asks Red. “I know they’re up to something, those squirrelly fucks! And if they are, your humans who you love so much aren’t spilling the beans!” she says, accusingly. “They know. I’m sure of it. They’re up to something.”
Isaiah sighs. “Red,” says Isaiah again. “I accept and understand your reasoning for your anger,” says Isaiah. “But this new process of your thoughts troubles me even more.”
“Just look!” argues Red, spinning around and swiping its arm off of her shoulder. “Use your zappy bird eyes and look at what Beulah is doing RIGHT NOW!” she snaps. “Please!”
Isaiah stares at her desperate expression and then closes its eyes, not able to say ‘no’ to that face.
Beulah stands in the corridor of the shrine on floor eighteen and sweeps with the broom with a bored look in his eyes.
Isaiah switches its vision, looking through the eyes of one of the homunculi in the shrine.
The shrine-maiden stands there, perfectly still. Her eyes are blank and void, and she stands in front of a wall, staring at it from several inches away without moving or shifting in any manner at all.
It’s like she’s as much a piece of the house as any beam or door present there. She is simply a static and dead thing.
Isaiah opens its eyes.
It shakes its head. “Red. Things are exactly as they ought to be.”
“Birdshit!” yells the uthra. “I can smell fuckery all the way up here!” she shouts, clenching her fists.
Isaiah lifts a hand, stopping her. “Red. For you, I will speak to Beulah and the others myself. I will go and look at the Homunculi myself.” It looks at her in concern. “But why is this such a serious topic now all of a sudden?” it asks. Isaiah looks her over. “Is it because they, the homunculi, are like humans?”
“I… - shut up!” says Red, rubbing her face. “It has nothing to do with that!” She points at herself. “You’re just floating there, thinking I’m babbling a bunch of crap,” says Red, pointing at herself. “But I’m the one trying to keep this place safe, because you aren’t going to do what needs to be done when the time comes!”
Isaiah looks at her furious expression, which certainly signals anger and hurt, but also confusion. This topic means a lot to her.
Ah.
It thinks that it sees now.
It sees now the reason for Red’s particular zest for life, to phrase it kindly. Her intense hatred for the humans, this new thing with the homunculi who resemble them – they likely all stem from the same place.
“Thank you, Red,” says Isaiah, grabbing and holding her in an embrace as its hand runs consolingly over her back.
“Ah, sheesh, really?” asks Red, groaning. “Gross. Can’t you just… yell at me?” she asks. “I really want you to yell at me.”
“Next time,” says Isaiah, feeling a warm face press itself against the bottom of its shoulder. “For now, you must suffer this, I am afraid.”
It looks down at the world around them, at this little slice of it that they have managed to make. Yes, it is ‘Isaiah’s’, in the sense that it was the thing that became the spark for all of this. But that spark was nursed and tended to by Red, first and foremost.
And this is where the intensity of her concerning new nature might perhaps stem from. The fact that this place, itself, the people, the tower, everything and all of it is now, for the second time in her existence ‘all that she has left’ and this new thing can be taken away very, very quickly, just as the old thing was.
“Thank you for doing what I do not have the strength to do,” says Isaiah. “When the hour comes when blood must be spilled, which I am not strong enough to draw, then I will depend on you, Red.”
“S- shut up!” barks a voice from in front of itself, and Isaiah feels something bite its body.
A significant oddity.
But not everybody knows what to do in such situations. Some people have only ever learned how to respond to negative forces.
| ~ [Beulah] ~ |
| Human, Male, Thief |
| Location: The Tower, Floor Eighteen - The Shrine |
“Beulah,” says a quiet voice from next to him. Beulah turns his head, holding onto the broom as he looks at the shrine-maiden standing there, stiff and still like a statue as he walks past her. They don’t hide and run from him anymore. Although sometimes, they will use their tails as barriers when they become overstimulated. The middle shrine-maiden stands there.
She holds out her hands, and Beulah looks down at what she’s holding.
“I found a bug,” she whispers. There’s no reason for her to be whispering, they’re alone. But they just have trouble understanding tones and volume sometimes.
Beulah stares at the thing in her open palms that is, indeed, a bug. It looks like some random cricket from outside. Some adventurer must have dragged it into the tower with them. Likely, it was clinging to their bag and just jumped off here.
He looks back at the shrine-maiden, who hides her lower face beneath a tail, staring at him as she holds the cricket out his way. “It went ‘ie ie ie’,” she explains.
“Nice,” says Beulah.
“Ie ie ie,” repeats the shrine-maiden.
Beulah nods.
Makes sense to him.
“Ie ie ie,” repeats the man. The shrine-maiden giggles.
The cricket hops away.
She gasps, exploding in a puff of smoke as she transforms into a fox and chases after it, leaving Beulah standing there, watching as the two of them disappear. Then his eyes wander down to the floor, covered in fresh hairs and fur that he sweeps away into the pile.
| ~ [???] ~ |
| Human, Female, Monk |
| Location: The Tower Graveyard |
She sits in the graveyard, meditating amongst the haunting spirits that fill the gaps between the many tombstones. She sits next to the graves of the compatriots who she had fought side by side with during her time as an assailant on the tower.
With crossed legs, her hands on her knees, a straight back and a slightly bowed head, she inhales deeply once more, holding the breath before returning it back out to the world from which she had taken it.
She does mourn the loss of these lives around her. They were not friends or family, merely work acquaintances.
But the loss of life, she sees now, was entirely avoidable. None of these people needed to die. Isaiah had already opened the door for them to step through, but they, lost in the rigidity of the confines of their lives as dungeon-inspectors, had been unable to see it for what it was.
In those days, she had lost her composure. The things she trained for during her life and youth had become buried under the weight of responsibility, burden, and purpose.
– Something places itself down onto her lap.
The monk opens her eyes, looking at the face below. An uthra lies there on the damp grass of the graveyard, with orange hair and a dress of the same color.
“What’chya doing?” asks Orange.
“Meditating,” replies the monk and closes her eyes again to return to her practice.
– An open hand lightly slaps itself against her face, clinging there like a spider to a wall. The monk opens her eyes again, staring through the fingers that obscure her sight.
“Why?” asks the uthra.
“To clear my mind,” replies the monk. “To stay sharp and in focus in all moments of life.”
“...Huh…” The uthra, lying on her back, lifts a leg into the air. She focuses, pursing her lips as she presses herself back, trying to get her foot to touch the monk without moving her hand from her face or her back from the ground.
“What are you doing?” asks the monk.
Orange sticks the tip of her tongue out of her mouth, pressing her lips around it as she focuses. “Trying to touch the top of your head with my foot,” explains the uthra, doing her best to do just that.
The monk, fairly certain she won’t be able to meditate with this creature here, decides to engage. “Why?” she asks, looking down at the head resting on her lap.
Orange stops, freezing half-way through her contortion, and the two of them stare at each other for a time in silence.
“You wanna go fishing?” asks Orange, entirely out of the blue.
“Pardon?” asks the monk.
Orange lets her leg and her hand flop down, and she lays there, spread eagle as she moves her arms and legs up and down, as if trying to make a snow-angel. “I’ve never been fishing before. It seems like it could be fun,” explains the uthra.
“I suppose it is, as long as you are not a fish,” she replies.
Orange gasps, her eyes going wide.
The uthra spins over onto her hands and knees, looking at the monk. “Could you imagine being a fish?” she asks. She blows up her cheeks, puffing them out as she stares. The monk tilts her head, staring at the odd creature. She has had encounters with Isaiah’s uthra now and then. They are certainly interesting. But this one seems particularly… excitable and unable to focus in the least.
Slowly, she lifts her hands, pressing a finger against the uthra’s face.
“Ffff–” air leaks out of Orange’s pursed lips as the monk’s finger deflates her cheek. “- ish.” They stare at each other for a time. “Fish,” repeats Orange, nodding.
“I see,” replies the monk, looking at the uthra.
Orange nods again.
“Okay. Bye,” she says, and then shoots off, vanishing in a blast of energy as she flies into the fog of the graveyard.
How… strange. The monk looks into the distance for a time and then resumes with her prior posture, closing her eyes and returning to her meditation.
– Something wet flops onto her lap.
“I’m back. I found a fish,” says Orange.
The monk stares at the fresh fish that seems to have just been ripped straight from the river a second ago. It flops around in her lap. She looks back up at the uthra, seeing that this will go nowhere productive if she forces the issue of silence.
“Would you like to take a walk together?” asks the monk. Orange’s eyes go wide, and she nods excitedly. “Very well,” replies the woman, getting up. She hands the fish to Orange. “But put this back into the river, please. I think it does not enjoy being outside of the water.”
“OKAY!” yells the uthra, for some reason. She snatches the fish back and vanishes. An instant later, she returns. “So what’s it like to have dead friends?” she asks. “Are you sad?”
The monk lifts an eyebrow. “This is a poor question to ask someone,” replies the woman, nodding her head as she starts to walk.
Orange flies after her. “Oh.” She hovers next to her as she walks to nowhere in particular. Walking can be just as good as meditation. The calming of the mind, the quieting of the hissing voices that persist throughout the days of one’s life, is the intent of the practice. Both meditation and walking are ample tools to do this, but so can any other focused practice such as combat training or any activity that leads to a focusing and silencing of the mind, allowing one to be with oneself without distractions.
“Sorry,” says Orange. “Red yells at me too. She says I’m annoying. Can we not be friends now?”
The monk looks over at the uthra, staring at her, perplexingly, almost frightened face as they move through the graveyard. “The point of a walk is to walk,” replies the monk. Orange blinks and then lowers herself down onto her feet, holding her arms unsteadily at her side as if she had never used her legs before and had no idea how to stand right.
“Like this?” she asks.
“Close,” replies the monk.
“Can’t we just fly?” asks Orange.
“I can not fly,” replies the monk.
“Oh…” Orange stares down at her feet as she stands there with bowed legs, like a dancer ready to spring into the air. “I mean, have you practiced?”
The monk stares at Orange, waddling alongside her. The uthra laughs as she looks down at the ground as she walks like a proud bird. “Look! I’m Isaiah!” she says, flapping her wings.
“Come on,” says the monk. “The river is not that far away.”
“Huh? The river?” asks Orange. “Why are we going there? I thought we were walking?” She shakes her head. “I can’t swim.”
The monk looks back at her, tilting her head. The creature is very lively. With this kind of energy, perhaps there is no stopping it? Perhaps channeling and redirecting it is the only way to survive its full onslaught in a healthy fashion? “Then we’ll have to ask the fish about it when we get there,” she replies, allowing herself to make a joke.
Orange gasps and laughs. “Good thing I put it back into the water!” she says, ‘walking’ alongside the monk.
“Mm,” replies the monk.
The two of them have a nice walk together and, while it isn’t exactly meditative and peaceful, it is certainly… a learning experience.
The fish has little to teach them, however, having swam away as fast as it could and being nowhere to be found by the time they get to the river.
