Despite all around him being a vibrant light show, nothing of it reflects from the amethyst gem seated into his newest prize. Around and around he spins it on his arm, self-assured that it cannot fall off on its own after its arms bent of their own will to encircle it.
(A tiny head you’d have to have to wear this. And…)
No longer does this higher plane grasp at Adris’ mind. It doesn’t drive him to manic excess, for the creeping dimensions of another’s perfect world linger at the periphery to drown out competitors.
(A gift from a place where… triangles become more triangles, to become… a single triangle, which becomes one of a pattern, as one becomes many to return to one…)
“Be not afraid.”
A hand to his chest stifles his overworking diaphragm.
Subtle mental tricks via aura training push the calculations away, placing them in competition with the vicious biting feelings. Keeping his body stepping through easy forms to limber up solves the rest.
(… Nothing permanently harmed… so far… besides obsessing over that time-tested mature, bizarrely easy pushover, living collection piece that fell from the sky.)
It sends a lurch down his abs to his crotch, thinking of the way she closed around his length after a fearful drop into pure squishiness.
“Oh, my worshipful praises do for her like honey does for Kol. I didn’t… really think… a lady that small would just hop on my dick just because…?”
After so many women in such a short time, rating the experiences and determining the differences is quite difficult, even for a pure lady-killer like Adris has grown to become, but…?
Once the ecstasy drains away, the enervating tirade returns to stew.
(She loved it, and… yet, after, bitched me out? Why’d she have to turn out to be such a…?)
“Unforgivable it be…”
After shredding Adris with an ecstatic tear down of his romantic prowess and sexual proclivities, the crazy fuckdoll had stuck fast like glue when stepping onto the gray coating the workshop’s floor.
“… for a work place utilized by this tool to be left in a disrespectful state.”
With neither emotion in her voice nor fluidity in movement, surprisingly easily did Adris’ intuition reveal her cold detachment as only skin deep. She momentarily grimaced upon betraying her thoughts, violating her own order to forget so that she could bend down to pick up a dropped tool.
“Basic maintenance and restoration be required…”
To him she’d winced at his facial response, hope vanishing so that she dipped to stare at his pants which belong to another, inviting more pain before utilizing her strangely acquired habit of batting her eyes at him to entice.
“… Aid would be offered, then, solely for duty’s sake, perhaps? Granted… a single mercy, a kinder gentleman would demonstrate toward a lesser?”
(Let his pets clean up after his messes.)
He’d spared no reply except to wave her off and depart through the heavy locking doors, the constant muted hum of the walls’ architecture continuing to unsettle his soul. Something Falke-made sent his guts boiling at the thought of fixing it.
And outside, into the maddening radiance of a world created solely by rainbow stuff woven into images from mirrors, this crazy place somehow comforts him now once separated from his emotional yoke called a Lunamaton.
(I’ve rescued everyone. Reclaimed my assets. Learned enough about these four, my… sister, and myself.)
Foremost, the knowledge that Neesiette is the best and the worst.
(I know what I have to do with all four now. Everything else is irrelevant. A waste.)
Possessing wings that lift his spirits and also baggage that drags him to the Sea’s infinite bottom, Neesiette is practical but also surprisingly clingy to the past.
(Minor promises will never work with her. Only a… perfect solution? I should run, shouldn’t I…?)
Only the door to the tree outside hears his sighs, preparing to unlock when he grabs hold of its handle. Now that nothing guides its locks, Adris instinctively comprehends that the manse will obey whoever places their own will upon its local parts.
“I can’t run from Neesiette. If I wanted genuine, whatever that was…” He can only clench his hand and savor the good saved from near ruin.
“Was certainly close! In its own way. Maybe even more genuine than with Lycia, because we…! We can be…”
(We could… eventually be lovers?)
Grossly over-dramatic, but truly affectionate. Three others always demand so, so much for theirs.
Still, closest and most open of them up to and including accepting Adris’ truly difficult human condition, exists in a relationship without concrete rules at present. Partners, but he no longer comprehends her.
(Maybe closer, maybe further, depends on the instance? She… it felt like I was talking to someone new, at times? But, Neesiette?)
An offer of aid, now and forever, is stronger than any other bond save Rantil’s.
It took such herculean poetic effort, but it wasn’t unenjoyable at all to woo her if only to gloat how quickly she was prodded to mold to his own desires.
(I thought that spoiled princess was a romance fiend in her forties, but Neesiette is a millenniums-old leftover lady.)
And, so long as he keeps those three close to her, their romance doesn’t have to end. That he’s inclined to acquiesce to her orders remains a stabbing point.
Every time she smiles though, he can forgive one of those “woman’s mood” moments.
Maybe.
As he rubs his temples, remembering her screed’s length…
(She alone never rejected me after our oath. No matter how mouthy she is, she’s also so timidly… pliable… even when she’s scary. In the final pot, she’s bluffing and I hold the winning stack.)
Though she treated him as inferior, she decided that their bodies could join.
“Never forget our relative positions of manipulability. My charms won her, secretly, while she won me openly. Secrets matter more, Neesiette!”
Spirits could merge in private bliss once he gave in, for his openly mocking voice was tuned just right for tickling fancies tonight. Forgiveness could be found with the unleashing of his horrendously overburdened testicles, full even after a day of so much sex.
(It was the perfect answer for how to awaken her subdued femininity!)
“I was right, Feh—!”
The embossed door handle clicks, setting the transfer mechanism humming. Destination plate above engraves with a new phrase, unnoticed.
It drowns out his exuberant realization, how alone he is in his mind now.
No screaming boy left to call his advice perfect.
“… right.”
To refrain from wandering to other useless dead topics, Adris can only cease speaking, thinking, or worrying.
Just waiting. Biding his time.
As the door’s mechanism turns, Adris’ sudden inner ear pressure causes him to wince. Tapping at his jaw, he can hear the grinding sounds of gears turning quite clearly from the stopped ear, when the other…?
Along with this mechanical grind comes hissing sounds that fade out. A momentary sense of vertigo as he shakes his head.
(Especially, disappointing herself or her creator isn’t allowed. An old wound despite claiming invulnerability. Knowing her true power now, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s lethal for whoever caused it…?)
A last minute check is given to Adris’ presentiment of escape. There must always be a proper persona to demonstrate, even now. All tools recovered, save those Still hid in Ave’s bag of unending storage, he can accomplish many objectives alone.
(Neesiette is so… perfect and imperfect, so alike me… and also very… foreign.)
Foreign to Zennia is comforting to one from Xin.
And she knows secrets that will soon be his salvation.
The fake violet vessel’s light behind overpowers the higher realm’s own, casting a warped shadow upon the door that swings open now at his moment of choosing. That shadows can exist in a realm of perpetual radiance doesn’t cross his mind.
With his half cloak re-affixed, he concentrates on making sure his fog tool’s loss goes unnoticed as long as possible.
(Worth it… I hope. And gift-giving of that magnitude shouldn’t be revealed to the rest. Especially Kol.)
“Gather the herd, head for the door. Hah, then this happens all over again in a huge tree ‘infested with elves’, to quote Still…”
And as Adris confirms his goal with the intentional cracking of his tired joints all the way to his toes, he lightly steps into the blackness beyond the opening gateway.
“We’re done with this shitty place.”
(I won. Neesiette is mine.)
So that nobody can fail to hear him, Adris rolls his shoulders and speaks for [Authentic Fiction’s] benefit.
“This tale is finished. I’m done with… no, I’ve avenged enough. That asshole is plenty crying, I bet.”
(Even if I want to watch… it’s not really that important… anymore.)
Once outside, the reward will be a lasting, developing relationship with four females.
No matter how much proximity sends his skin crawling in memory of…!
Whispers all around remind of a fairy’s extended hand to guide him…
“…
Be…”
… deeper into the infinite, stagnant archive (or mausoleum) of Zennia’s past that blinded sight and seared every branch of his memories with the stain of its magnificence. It spun around him, growing upward like crystal structure in a poisoner’s kriss pond, then resonated until its all-seeing mind projected from within his protector as well…!
(Hnngh!?)
The moment of recollection is still crippling.
Alchemaster is greed. Veil is horror of beyond. But violet is of…?
(A wanderer, eternally alone, whose existence is greater than us all summed together!)
“Be…
… not…”
Shining violet eyes, a judgmental inhuman intellect betraying how similar Neesiette is to what lurks above that he must label “madness” in his lacking words. Just as gold and jade spared one from the full brunt of the Emperor’s shining sight, fragile human flesh analog in a slender armor of femininity swept him into soft arms to ride out the sickness drilling within.
In that space without defined boundaries, where blackness beyond stainless glass revealed a universe far too large for him to survive in, this tiny one had lulled him into complacency.
(I won… right? How could I surrender to…)
He hid from her haven’s true conceptual nature after feeling so much fray the instant he sought to pierce its core.
(She is… a person, no matter how oppressive…!)
And so he must reassure himself again, ripping his hand from the door to his forehead. Pressing firmly to contain the throbbing pain that doubles his vision.
“… a F r A i D…”
Smile, fiercely light and flattering because of her normal aloofness, even that is just an outward “mask” of her artificial face. Standing behind this lady awaits the rising dominance of a never-before-seen being that can obviously rain destruction from above upon all of Zennia.
Its distorting, towering shape looms in Adris’ fears, a superior threat that makes his envisioned perfect self antlike as he scurries away from this future ruin.
(… She refused to describe it…!)
A Lunamaton’s entreaty for trust becomes a rejection of the obvious truth clinging to her naked, sculpted symmetry that claims his attraction as his soul resists. Even as the screeching violet radiance drained his mentality and he ceased to care, somehow she was uncanny enough to keep him honest at the times he could have fooled her with grander lies.
“Who succumbed?” runs through his thoughts without cessation.
(Neesiette is Cethran… but, not Zennian, instead a rainbow-like truth from the distant stars invading, landed here to run amok… maybe!?)
— THE TALE FAILS TO ACHIEVE ITS CLIMAX —
— WHAT WAS [DESIRED] REMAINS UNWRIT IN DEED —
For only Adris’ benefit, the emperor’s dry voice announces [Authentic Fiction’s] thoughts on his decision. A proclamation that halts all movement.
(H-Huh…?)
At that moment of doubt about their relationship and her essential nature is when the handle completely turns of its own volition.
Rabbit boots leap off the floor to fling his upper body forward. Adris’ refocusing eyes and disjointed mind only barely grasp the depths of the ink lunging out.
“… Black?”
Inescapable, rotting hate erupts.
The hushed watchers waiting until the last instant to ambush do so with ear-splitting howls paralyzing Adris.
Each in the chorus is an individual clamp with chains to snare the sinner.
But beyond naming the color, he can’t even scream this attacking legion’s true natures before he’s devoured. White-fur boots hopping to escape with his thrashing legs kicking behind get consumed last, ruby gems blazing with anger absorbing into the maw.
A gateway slams shut, leaving no trace of the “victor”.
— REFRAMING NARRATIVE… —
…
…
The cold of their chains snap off when he’s thrown free to crash into piles of junk. Adris shivers on the furs that save his neck, finding it warms him not a bit as he checks for wounds.
(They attacked me!)
For around is a chill draft, and the whispers that raged at him have yet to abate. They exist within the gloom that absorbs all view past ten feet. Judging him with hisses.
“… What now!?”
A slurred exclamation silences them, for the grinding mechanism that fills Adris’ throbbing head lurches with gears shifting.
— THE TALE THAT WAS HALTED RESUMES WITH THE MEETING OF THE [EVIL] AND [GUIDE] —
— AID IS REQUIRED TO REASSIGN THE PLAYERS —
(Why did… the gateway not lead to the garden!? The “tale” was supposed to be over! I won!)
Rising to a kneel, the victor of the night finds that this candlelit room he’s arrived at is nearly crushing with its tightness alone.
Stuck between an overfilled bookcase perched upon an outcropping of raw cut stone on one side and a worn-smoothed granite wall on the other with vellum a plenty plastering it, he discovers that the passage between is a precarious scaffold of creaking wood that sways in place. Over the side either way are depths that separate two different constructions, one with external edifices like a palaces and another seemingly attached to entomb the old from day.
And here is where Adris must brace himself for a tremor that rumbles through the room, clattering metal and porcelain until it ceases half a minute later.
(Where the hell is this dump!?)
So many objects resist his rising, all around is stacked high with clutters of sorted personal treasures. Even hanging from the door behind that he fell from, secreted as it is as a rail-less alcove cut into an external battlement, clothes of a size ranging from child to man proudly display fealty to green birds.
From stolid owl to proud jackdaw to dutiful falcon, along with a servant’s wear are the gathered and tagged remnants of lives ascending the space of this crack between buildings. A museum is preserved in darkness where sky once could be seen. Its contents, from suits of armor bearing the same cultural marks as Crackbrass’ dressed on mannequins, to possessions of craft and life necessities as inconsequential as a cut-crystal vase filled with fine jeweler’s tools, are tagged with an endless variety of names.
So many that their cramped, imprisoning worship prevents movement by even a child without clever acrobatics. But all end with the family “Kestner”. Adris recognizes their faces, too, the portraits and picturesque scenes hanging everywhere above from hook or stretched wire. Hundreds of blue-blooded bastards and bitches, all gloriously deceased.
(Where is this!? It’s… it’s overwhelming.)
And from every item, the stench of the unknown leaks to fill the air. All the stored contents reek of scorching heat such that Adris cannot bring himself to touch them.
“Right, who else…! How could you be through with only that!?”
(That sounds like…)
At the center of this crevice and obvious curator of its years of hoarding is a figure that flits between objects holding a glass bottle in hand. Rather than approach or attack, this slurring personage throws things about searching for something as Adris stumbles through the press trying to reach him.
“Then, then come! Come, and have your fill of me! Drink… and eat… while it’s all fresh and…!”
When Adris pushes past a stack of parchments and tips it to crash upon the floor, the candlelight dims.
“HAH!?”
A spark of emotions, magnificence of purpose and self-defacement equally balanced, drills through Adris’ skull upon an arcing touch of black forming to zap his arm.
(The fuck!?)
“B-Bleeding…! Bloody jacket!”
Revealed by his mistake is an old gentleman struggling to be a curator or an adult, for the jacket he wears is baggy on a slender frame.
“It fit better earlier…!?”
One jacket with a falcon’s emblem lies beside an empty bottle that smells like clovers. A nearly complete dress set of another emblem shares the same pile. Spilled, dried liquor leaves it pungent, some time passed between viewing and spill showcasing this man’s binge.
(How much did you drink?)
Adris’ “villain” jumped up from an ornate regent’s desk of such impressive size that it stretches from one wall of this crack to the other. Taller than a child, it is a gleaming box by candle flame alone. With molded corners, jewel and metal inlays, and feet that are the taxidermy talons of a huge bird, that it has bedding atop it instead of important papers reduces its impressiveness not a bit.
Its owner is clownish by comparison.
His chosen jacket proudly displays the jackdaw emblem, but hardly fits. Once hardier of build, he’s lost too much from his wiry frame to fill it. Spinning around in the mess, he nearly trips before his reddened face blankly registers the one laying on his bed.
“… Ah… wrong one…”
And so he throws off what he can’t wear, abandoning his dressing. With a sweat-drenched dress shirt only, he menaces Adris with a forge poker he draws from a nearby set.
“Don’t think me, uugh, unprepared, imp!”
So boasts the old man while swaying about, swinging once in Adris’ direction to shatter a sparkling lamp. Pieces scatter as the old man gapes, then screams.
“… Oh!? Look what you did, now, you scheming little bastard…!”
Whatever Adris intended to enjoy about this night’s success, and perhaps wished to avail himself of to soul-filling delight upon witnessing the ruin of…
“… That was Ayre’s favorite.”
The spiritless dollmaster tosses aside his “weapon” and begins to sweep up the pieces with his hands. “Lady Uthar never gave another present to a man her entire life. No man… ever meant as much to her, even after they married separately…”
(Why bring me to watch him crumble?)
While his manse no doubt crumbles around him given the tremors that afflict this place, Falke Kestner, proudest bastard and Adris’ personal tormentor for the past day, squats in total disregard for the fact that he wears no shoes.
Bleeding purple Vigor from his cut up black socks, the man sits within the mess and fails to accomplish fixing it when he searches for fitting pieces.
(… Serves… serves you right, though!
YOU FUCKING WORM!)
Fists grip, rising along with the corners of Adris’ mouth.
“Hah…”
And he sighs, feeling a bit better about the situation. He thought he’d have to abandon his customary inspection of results, but his Talent answered his heart’s desires automatically?
(GET TO THE FLOOR, TO THE DIRT, WHERE YOU BELONG FOR DEGRADING SERRAS’ MEMORY!
I’LL SEE YOU DEAD BY THE EN—!)
Adris’ first consideration is fueled by a rage that sends the room trembling. All about objects fall, fearsome existences of bundled black energy clinging to them!
Swaying of creaking wood is joined by distant moans.
(… SHIT! It’s all!?)
When his own emotions peak, the collection’s sleep ends. Memorabilia wafts with the touch of chaotic feelings. Though unnoticing of it, Falke Kestner sits at the center of a rising storm of noise.
“… Everything broke, everything breaks. You get that, don’t you, demon?” After failing to undo his mistake, the drunkard rises to glare at Adris.
(I am not the demon, you are you miserable little cock-suck—!)
“You broke everything, not me, stupid bastard. The whooooole time, you’ve been breaking everything you care about. Neesiette is just the last person you failed.”
(Stupid, if you wanted to fix your life, you should’ve started by punching that bitch Dohle in her face!)
“Dohle was who you really failed, though, Dummke.”
“Aaaah… aaaah…?”
That name prompts the most beautiful cringe from the old bastard.
“All your misery is because you chose her. That psychopathic woman led you to ruin. How the fuck could you miss what’s so obvious, that your entire life is lacking worth? Oh, right, that’s because you lived comfortably the whole time at the top because you rode on her wake before she obviously ruined your family!”
Every little nuance of Falke’s self-loathing is exhilarating, Adris agrees, but it’s hardly worth lingering around waiting for the building to collapse on them both!
“I… did not…! She, didn’t…”
(Well, maybe, actually it is worth having to dig my way out!)
“By yourself, you lack all capacity to do what needs to be done, you jackass. It’s why I won. You made pathetic rules, expecting…”
To his chest Adris points, showcasing the obvious.
“… a true winner to play by another’s rules. I subverted you and everything you wanted as easily as kicking a cat off a hot roof!”
Though, if Adris truly wanted to watch this stuck-up idiot with delusions of refinement break down, he’d have sought it out already. But given the chance to inflict more harm…?
“What a great name she chose! Neesiette was this close to choosing you, but you didn’t have the nerve to just say what you felt about her!”
How the old man gapes in return, eyes wide with shock as his red, inflamed cheeks turn brighter, it’s just…
“Fucking idiot.”
(Okay, I changed my mind!
Thanks, Authentic Fiction, this was really worth it!)
Falke bares his teeth, his whole body shaking with the rage overtaking him. By all accounts, Adris should now be beaten to death by the man who is clearly still stronger. The only action needed by Falke is to retrieve the poker and…
(But he won’t, I’ve read him perfectly, after all. He’ll just… find some way to blame me! Completely lacks the ability to think he’s the one who is wrong.)
But he won’t attack Adris, because it’s not “proper” in the face of the outcome.
And so Adris feels a little disappointed…
“… That’s… true.”
As predicted, whatever angry expectations he had for harm evaporate, and Falke sags with lack of care.
“If I’d half the nerve I’ve needed… my entire life…”
Rather than violence, tears—
(… What?)
With tears streaming down his cheeks, the undignified old man returns to fitting the correct jacket now. Haunted as he is, near total collapse by Adris’ seasoned estimates, Falke still values outward dignity.
Watching the deserving lose is, after all, often involving tears…!
(You’d still have lost, you fucking fool! Tears don’t mean shit to me!)
Adris smiles at that, finally.
And the enemy notices, wide gaze narrowing to allow the glowing blue to regard only the boy intruder. A power absent in Falke would be dangerous could he finally claim it with such concentration.
“… I’d have just correctly annihilated you all from the start, exactly as Peak Zenith suggests we do. I’d have never listened to her suggestions. You were a cancer I invited in, so I am to blame for letting you spread.”
In this moment, the favored Pillar recovers sufficiently to voice the thoughts he let lie. Adris’ heart isn’t beating fast despite the danger, because paradoxically, the fact that Falke must regard him as a true threat is…?
(That’s the right way! The moment you underestimated me… you were…! YOU LOST BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT I COULDN’T CHALLENGE YOU FROM THE START!)
“But… no. ‘An elegant solution, or none at all.’” When “a will to kill” evaporates, leaving Falke’s shoulders sagging, only then does Adris notice the deep lines on his face made more obvious by alcohol. “I, always, cannot bring myself to… disobey what another wants… and asks of me…”
One last chance for revenge is passed up by Falke.
(Was I this effective? Oh, I thought I’d just stabbed his pride a little, but he can’t even “get it up” for some violence any more!?)
A brilliant victory!
“Hah! Still blaming another for losing Neesiette? If you’d just listened to what she really wants, you could—!”
“I never intended to ‘keep’ her.”
“… What?”
Such an unemotional assertion.
Adris instantly disbelieves… until searching the man’s shining blue eyes, noting where the old bastard looks upon Adris’ attempt to gauge the truth.
“I clearly heard you offer everything to her as your mistress…!”
“A shambolic thing. Ritual contrivance. A fairy tale, a scene like I heard as a youth.”
Rather than avert his eyes with shame, or harden them with anger at being caught out, Falke’s eyes remain pure with conviction.
“There are no knights like in those tales. No revivals of entire kingdoms with a princess’ lips kissed. It was an eager show, so that she would… appreciate it all enough to say… ‘yes’, to my gift of my manse, and possibly this collection, to her.”
(… Oh… Oh? Then… I…?)
The vitality of violence fades and leaves a shambling man again.
“I merely wanted to allow someone who shared the same love I did for… ‘what I cared for, cared for by her’… to let it be passed along for preserving history.”
Beside and from a curio cabinet while ignoring Adris’ burning hate, a circular object that caught Falke’s interest leaves him wide-eyed to note its tarnished metallic surface.
“But, no. Even that must fail, for I am a failure.” The orb, appearing as a smaller one like Neesiette’s gift, glints darkly. ”My life became… ‘pieces’ slowly shattering on that day.”
(Put it back!)
Adris cannot speak, his tongue stolen by the burning flame of meaning that erupts from the orb held in Falke’s hand. Shining darkness, very familiar in sight, taste, and touch as it burns the boy by proximity, sends Adris to try and run.
No satisfaction outweighs the danger biting on his neck!
““““““nO rUn! wItNeSs!””””””
But the invisible watchers pounce from the shambles of a life’s museum.
Weight becomes physical as Adris exhales from impact, for unseen chains clamp down and drag his legs wide! Ten-thousand horrors that test the limits of reality’s protective veil nearly pierce through. Their collected might shakes the room in Adris’ sight alone, sending him into a vertigo!
(WITNESS WHAT!?)
“There will never be an inheritance.”
A whirlpool of darkness surrounds Falke, flowing into the sphere without disturbing the winds. The gloom of ten feet becomes five, then less as it erodes the museum’s stacks to hunt them both.
“I’ve nothing… worth inheriting. Even the Tree of the Will can’t be saved, anymore. ‘History’, all I have ever known valued as such, is… ending.”
Falke’s announcement coincides with the last bit of free darkness stuffing itself into the humming orb. Now, only the dyeing premises’ zone of death exists to deny a place to run.
(Excuse me…! [Authentic Fiction]!? A LITTLE HELP, PLEASE!?)
But he can’t scream its name. It denies his attention actively by straying from access to his tongue.
“She chose you, after all? Your ‘gentility’ is superior?”
“… That’s not what I was chosen for…!”
“The only… ‘woman’ after that perfect one that had any worth, chose the better man!”
(Better at something else…!)
Whatever leaped to Adris from the parchments is a wisp compared to the oncoming storm. But Adris can’t flee, only prepare as his hateful foe screams.
“A pointless life of curiosities and keepsakes! Someone born deaf can never appreciate the song, anyway, nor obviously the composers! Hahaha!”
Blue eyes are a curse.
So Adris thinks, sharing a taunt heard from the tumult around him.
“Then, you have it!”
This sneering wild man moves his gift into a full throwing form, rearing back…!
— ALL THAT THE TALE STILL REQUIRES FOR COMPLETION SHALL BE PROVIDED —
— SEEKING ONLY [A POETIC REVENGE] —
(No? No! [Authentic Fiction], I’m your papa, so don’t do this to daddy!)
The Emperor’s promise clarifies events somewhat, for Adris’ view of the world narrows to Falke.
“SO WHY NOT VALUE HER DECISION, YES!?”
Black lines overwrite the man’s face and body, leaving only shining eyes and a maddened grin. More like a demon now than Adris, this feeling monster is about to harm Adris deeply.
(NONONONONO, NO MORE DREAMS!)
“Black-haired devil, take EVERYTHING!”
The pitch-black orb is a simple catch, even if the man hurtles it with all of his preternatural strength gifted by a [Modus].
In fact, this object naturally gravitates toward a superior “darkness”. Its whispered screams cannot be heard by the man, so it’s chosen him to—?
(Aaaaah, this again!?)
A memory pierces into him, and he vanishes into it with a torrent of blackness swirling his consciousness away.
All his bones crack, this time though, for in comparison to Fehr’s emissions the weight of this old man is…!
(WHAT THE HE—!?)
…
…
“‘Perfect academics and golemancy.’ A first in our history.”
Unemotional to its very depths, the voice of a giant wakes him up.
“A meager contribution for the Will, Lordship.”
Replying is one that could be a boy’s or a girl’s, with how young it sounds.
“Hmm… manners, also. A suitable reverence is an added bonus, considering it’s… this family.”
Light projects into this purely dark world, emitting from the forms that bear relevance to the one who experienced this memory.
A great seal on a wall in the shape of an owl sitting proudly upon a brass horn shines downward, its radiance imparting to whom it covers a feeling of vast, unshakable inferiority.
The desk it shines down on is so massive, ornate, and grandiose that the boy, whose feelings bleed through now, exists with two thoughts.
“What a beautiful beast, the gryphon, truly fitting of those who should fly but don’t need to.” Is the first.
A moving silverish timepiece seated upon the desk continues its orderly progression of swings. Though he cannot place the metal, the boy comprehends the value of a mechanism that has no visible components!
When the man behind the desk rises, looming so larger than the boy that an impression of needing to kneel almost throws him from his own chair, the desk cannot compare to its owner.
“… I can find no fault with you.”
The second thought then makes the boy’s heart almost burst.
“I want to be the one deserving of that place behind it!”
To be told “there is no fault” is the highest of praises possible, as the boy knows, despite his too young age.
It is a praise that guarantees…!
“Tell me, then: where is
your
m O t H e R?”
One word distorts this dreamworld, causing claws and teeth of imagined horrors to rip at it from just out of view!
The boy nearly falls from his chair, shaking despite the drive not to move at all. That this peerless figure, a living god, should mention that…!?
That…!?
“That…!”
At the raised voice, the idol that stands so tall widens his gaze upon the boy. A note of concern.
“… My custodian is… likely just outside of the main gate of the palace, seeking some means of illegal entry or… attempting to captivate a guardian in a foolhardy attempt to be led here.”
A tear nearly forms, but the boy fights it back.
With the truth given as it is and totally committed to the horror of announcing something so troubling, the godlike man who accepts no fault…!?
“… Haaah. Perhaps it is for the best.”
All magnificence seems to slide from the man’s shoulders. Instead, the gentleman who wears the fullest poofy aristocratic threads of the Will’s Speaker pulls off his floppy hat to throw it to the desk.
“L-Lordship…?”
“Having attempted to enter three times already, she is currently being detained within Pink Swirl, that restaurant at the bottom of the long slide down the city. She’s enjoying a frozen treat at my subordinate’s expense, a brilliant… smile showing.” An unsubtle fondness registers in the man’s voice, for a moment. “Troubling, though, that my subordinate is so prepared to sexually advance upon her without her even tempting him.”
“… Hah? I see.”
As the Will speaks it, it must be true.
And from the man’s opening hand, a green-glowing sphere can be viewed.
“‘It’s a cherry frozen tasty-looking evil water food’ says the earth, my… boy.”
The boy can only blink, thoughtless at his superior’s growing candidness and kind voice.
And to his own hands the orb is thrown to be caught over the great distance separating them.
Looking at it, wondering at the treatment gifted to a simple boy by a god, the holder of this glowing…
… communion… orb…?
“… I shall have you trained as… yes, as a companion to the Prince’s child. You shall be sent to the palace to become his… hmm, personal golemancer? ‘Tell him that golemancers do not require a connection to the Will’, yes, I will, so stop screaming.” With hand to his solid chin, the Speaker nods to himself as he speaks to an empty room. “… Oh, an interesting thought? I see, you were fascinated by the Regalia when you came in? Hmm, then, in time, it may serve to also have a Master Maker within the Prince’s retinue, so that we can safeguard his ‘wartime ideals’ from here?”
“… I… am…?”
Up from the chair the boy rockets, hearing nothing when he knows that he should hear everything.
Never permitted to be near the sacred object before, the first communion orb he has ever held is…?
“It won’t be allowed for you to take the family name, but… hmmm, I will make certain that they comprehend your position. Ah, it’s quite fortunate for you, my… young lad.”
Around the desk the man walks, to place his palm upon the boy’s head. Held there for a time, the old giant then lightly pats him, only twice, before drawing back.
“There is no, well, future for a Speaker. You will be spared much and gain more…
… BEcause, LEt’s faCE IT YOUNGIN’!?”
A black bolt of lightning crashes through the radiance of this memory!
“Ye ain’t got the talent, so don’t be worryin’ about what you ain’t got! There ain’t no real future in killin’ with flashy rainbow cutters anyway, just death you ain’t even gonna comprehend when it a comes!”
(No… NO NO NO NONONONONO…!)
Up from the table the old mercenary stood, to fetch a second drink for them to share. The look he’d had changed from interested with a scowl, to having soft eyes and a distance that grew between them. Not a troubling distance, but an uncertain one.
Something good, something bad, NEVER EXPLAINED!?
It had all changed right then, even though he’d impressed the man… so… much…!
“Middlin’ talent’s about what… we’ve all got, lad.”
And back he came, purposefully ignored the tears in Adris’ eyes.
“Tons of middlin’ graves to back up my claim. Can show ya where I slapped down my own cadre brothers into the thin dirt.”
Even though he’d always whipped him with the butt of his spear for crying during those “charm” sessions where Adris had failed to gain his trust…!
Now, instead he had…!?
“… Lad, just believe me, it’ll get better tomorra’. Y’know, a silver tongue ya got given instead of a huge ‘plate’! That owner lady before lifted ‘er skirt real fast when I had myself ‘a starvin’ son that I work to feed, oh bless me, I’m so lonely for it!’, and you got all weepy and thanked her for som’ rice an juice like you was worshipin’ a blessed Ascendant, gahahaha!”
And so the old mercenary had hugged him differently, slapped him again and again on the back.
Less as a pointless protege and more as…?
“Let’s go whorin’ together one day, eh, boy!? My treat, the first time, ‘least. Yer luck with women is honest, even though I’d look right if ya screamed ‘left’!”
“IT MAY SOUnd… undignified, presently, to accept such a position, but you will grow older an—”
“NO!”
And to the ground the boy’s head crashes, his screams filling the holy chamber that should be dignified.
“LET ME STAY! I WANT… I WANT TO SERVE THE FAMILY!”
“PULL YOUR HEAD FROM THE GROUND!”
But he doesn’t need to, for the god called the Speaker of the Will rips him up by his cuff to hold him aloft.
“NO KESTNER SHALL EVER BOW, EVEN TO A PRINCE!”
“I AM NOT A KESTNER! YOU SAID I’M NOT!”
“B-Boy!?”
Weak punches to the man’s arm shouldn’t produce even a whimper, but the old man’s wide face flinches.
“ALLOW ME TO STAY! I WANT TO STAY! PLEASE!?”
“Why? You’ll have… immense standing, even as a bastard! As the Prince’s ow—?”
“I ONLY WISH TO SERVE THE KESTNERS!
ONLY…! ONLY THIS FAMILY HAS VALUE TO ME!”
And so he screams!
And cries!
As everything he worked for for four years becomes meaningless. All of the attention from HER that forced him on this path! To bring HER back here!
ALL OF THE MOTIVATION TO CONTINUE, TO GROW, TO LIVE, AFTER FINDING OUT THAT “THIS FAMILY” TRULY WAS…!?
ALL OF THOSE EMOTIONS ARE WHAT HE TRIES TO PROJECT, TO CONVEY TO THE SOUL OF THE BEING THAT JUDGES HIM, TO BEG FOR FORGIVENESS FOR HIS SIN OF BEING A HALF-BLOOD…!
“Hoooh…?”
“Uwahh…! Huh!?”
The boy ceases his bawling when he notices that the man, a strange glinting of light off his neck with sparkling colors when this close to his god, has turned to look upon the mighty desk.
Both widen their eyes at the spearpoint growing from it.
Where a clock once sat, a silver slime has frozen in the process of spiraling into death aimed at…!?
“How very intriguing.”
At…!? The boy’s god, whose voice is also deathly calm…!?
This god turns to regard the boy, eyes serene, canny, brilliant blue so very studious…!?
“If I recall…”
As if seeing something within the boy for the first time…?
The look of a winner, or…?
“Didn’t you score quite highly with rudimentary alchemy? You won’t have a name, but you can become… someone quite valuable, perhaps.”
The man’s sudden smile is tight, both familial and… conspiratorial.
Maybe just… a man who “struck it rich”?
…
…
“KHACK…!?”
The torrent of sludge that invades him leaves Adris on one knee, spitting up either saliva or intestinal juices.
Either he hopes will stop the burning in his stomach.
(… NONONO, what the fuck was that!? What the fuck is happening!?)
Something has burrowed through his arm to his gut.
An Inner Expanse wavers, alters again despite firming as “Adris” during his change! The metallic sphere he holds, polished and gleaming in the darklight, no longer holds black tarnish clinging to it.
(F-FUCK!)
And he tries to throw it away, to hurl it down the hole between walls, but can only gingerly place it upon the floor with utmost care…!?
“FRAUD!? I am… a fraud!”
(Shut up…!?)
To witness the old man crying once more, hands pulling at his once-well kept bird-like hair as he silently sheds those tears, sends Adris shivering.
“I’m worthless…” Watching an old man cry is really off-putting, but also…?
(I understand.)
Pure happiness at witnessing pain is marred, twisting into…!?
The boy clutches his own head, gaping openly at the stupid thought he just had.
(… NO, NO I DON’T UNDERSTAND!? Why the fuck would I think that!?)
“That’s not the worst crime!”
A rage has taken the man, causing him to pick up another object. Statuary this time, the small stone-wrought, gem-encrusted piece of a jackdaw perching upon another bird is what Falke rears back to hurl at Adris.
“I enticed… others to believe in my lies!”
(SHIT!?)
Darkness had already gathered in this piece.
Lingering for a long, long time.
Unable to move, Adris closes his eyes…!
“I STOLE HAPPINESS I DIDN’T DESERVE!”
Adris’ hands burn hot!
…
…
“Always remember where you belong, Dummke!”
Upon a soft bed is where he lays, arms propped up to hold a “taunt” for viewing.
Two birds are caught in action by the expert piece. A jackdaw, mighty and strong, perches upon a frail-looking falcon. The winner of this confrontation is pulling the feathers from the other, leaving the hunting bird partially bald as it lays supine.
“Which you are should be obvious!”
The viewer of this breathes heavily, the sheets under his lean, but muscular, body soaked. Something other than his awestruck impression of the statuette is responsible for the slickness coating his legs and especially his softening cock.
Along his taut body creeps a hand, sliding up his side to loop under his arm.
“I changed my mind, you see? It won’t be good enough just to ruin them.”
By her ordering touch, the silent young man is pulled to face another clearly. Completely disrobed and only lightly covered by sheets, this slender older teen he shares a bed with is shining with the glory of a dominating winner.
Pert, still-growing breasts with red marks where he sucked are proudly shown, as is the thin red smudge on her inner thigh when she opens her legs at his inspection. A youthful lady should never behave so shamelessly, but this is a measure of pride for her that her fingers can part soft pink, flushed lips to demonstrate where his captured white seed now leaks from.
“Right, I took your first time!”
A victory for her, it seems, though his feelings aren’t of conquest or submission.
“With that, everything you had is mine now, Dummke! Sapphira can never have it…! And… this family will be mine, too!”
A catlike flashing grin follows her announcement of victory. Intoxicated by both circumstances and the hint of a fruity wine, this overly erotic heiress’ interest in a boy is greater than mere carnality.
“I’ll do what you could never dream of doing, since you’re just a deaf toady for that old bastard, looking for a ‘win’ to get up with him!” She leans in to whisper into his ear with a throaty, soft roar. “The Kestners will become the most powerful family in the Principality’s history with me as Speaker!”
Into an embrace he’s drawn.
“Nobody will remember the name of a butler…”
Her hands slide along his back to feel the property up while she giggles. She then pulls away to drive a finger into his ribs.
“… they’ll only remember mine. I’ll be the ‘first and best’ after I get rid of the rest of the portraits! Including your favorite’s! Hahaha!”
Toward his legs she glides, hesitating before firmly gripping his weakening length. Every part of him is one that belongs to her, and even how he moans occurs because she wills it.
“I’m perfect, while you’re just a tag along I keep around because, well, you know your place! Because you… obey me, I won’t throw you away even… after I’m best. Do you unDERSTAND!?
… ADRIS…?”
Black hair always cradled her body.
Even when she laid down, it worshiped this killer’s lean, tight body, while the hand that would rub his cheek was touched by the storm itself on the battlefield.
No eyes were needed to know this. Somehow, her hair could be sensed from a distance, and hands emitted what the Xin’Reh called “a will to kill”. A living arbiter of death could decide his fate, but instead would only calmly explore to mark how he would change at day’s end.
Even when he’d slept, he had often been, in some ways, awake waiting for this.
Noticed even the lightest of touches and comments.
Even when breathed out by a woman who could control the very world within her reach by the merest thought, Adris had been able to hear it.
How without care she had phrased it…
“Nobody but me will take you. Remember that.”
… and the snort made before rolling over after, every time, to punctuate the slight had left Adris emotionally numb for days after these occurrences.
Said regularly enough to become a quiet truth of their relationship, only now does he get the impression that…?
(SHUT UP, GET OUT! GET OUT! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!)
What it had truly meant wasn’t merely a slight.
It had been a cry for their relationship to become as good as it was bad…!
“MY TOY!”
To his neck is where she sinks her teeth, marking him as he moans loudly in bondage to this need to be touched by her.
“A worthless Kestner, but not you when you’re my toy! Kahahaha!”
A private joke sends her laughing in his face, then she drags closer to crush her tits on his chest to tempt him anew, smirking when he can only twitch quietly.
“I’ll keep you, then, so… don’t you dare disappoint me! If you disappoint me, if you act… disobedient, I’ll hunt you to death right then.”
Then the statue is put between them once more, with her laying flat beside with a yawn of contempt for his possible reply.
While he only studies it with awe, she grimaces and runs her finger on the bed in a circle.
“… Stop just staring at it silently! You’re creepy, even when I tell you not to talk.” She places her hand on his, makes them both hold the statuette. So needy for approval, despite the sheer malevolence of her tone, she points at the falcon.
“Right here is where you’ll stay. Under foot! Nobody… nobody can have you but me.”
And then she pushes the statue into his chest, before averting her gaze with a conflicting pain crossing her expression.
“… So… keep this to remind yourself… hmph.”
“… Yes, Dohle.”
And so he stares at it once more, but then moves between the jackdaw she grew for him from the earth and to the stunning woman whose talent makes this trivial.
At this time, despite his constant feelings otherwise, something within… finally…?
“Oh. I see.”
“See what? Speak up, idiot.”
Suspicious in mood, Dohle pulls in closer to deny escape.
“I understand what that feeling is, Dohle.”
“As if you could understand anything… but tell me. Any feeling you have is one I’ll take, too!”
And then, he does the most curious thing and places his hand behind her head,
“Hiie!?”
With her shying away in fright the whole time that it slowly moved toward her.
When he moves his face closer, she pales.
“No present I’ve received has ever made me happy. Only this one has.”
“Present!? It’s not a present! DUMMKE, I—!”
“But, there’s something left that you haven’t taken, Dohle.”
“Don’t you dare interrupt me! Who the fuck do you thi—MMMMPH!?”
To return her gift, he offers the only thing left to his divine mistress.
It sends her tearing back with a jolt when their lips touch.
“Huhh!? Haah!? … Uh?”
Rasping loudly, the always composed future ruler closes her mouth to touch her lips.
Then stares hard at him. Bright blue grows fiercer as she pouts for a moment, both hate and…?
“Y-You…!”
As a man would, this young lady grabs a hold of his head and lunges in to jam her tongue into his mouth.
Sloppy as possible, she clutches at him while exploring. As he has never tasted love, their minute of passionate kissing is the sum total of his knowledge. With unknown reasoning for it, maybe just because she can, his owner pins his tongue from the top with her own, stroking it as she presses.
When he ceases resistance, she strokes it more firmly!
“Mmmph…! Kah…”
Her hands dominate his body, doing their best to entice him into reaching for hers, all while he remains motionless at her true, hidden order.
But, because eternity cannot last…
“Haah…”
She pulls away to catch her breath. A look of pure triumph mixes with carnal attraction when she licks her lips clean of their saliva. For the first time since they met, his mistress appears without an abiding dislike for him.
“You’re so beautiful, you stupid bird… my… little pet.”
Instead, she smiles deeply, half like the other little ladies that crowd him and half like the owner of him that she self-reports as to crowds.
It… makes him…
… feel always like he does when she looks at him…
“I love you, Dohle.”
“…
… Uh…!? Hick!?”
Triumph fades when she hiccups, leaving a shocked-senseless young woman’s soft face growing beet red. And then she can no longer face him, averting her eyes elsewhere as they tear up.
“… What…!?”
Suddenly, she notices his naked chest, then looks lower to stop seeing it!
“What… do I… do?”
Then, looks down to see that his exposed lower self is…?
“… I… haven’t lost…”
And in a hurry, his matchless owner rips up the sheets around herself in a vain attempt to hide her naked body. Embarrassed, or so she seems when she starts hissing at him.
“… Fuck…! Fuck you, you stupid DUMMKE!”
A foot slams into his stomach, joined by more slams as he cradles her statuette, his only meaningful gift ever received, to save it from being broken!
“WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO MAKE YOU HATE ME!?”
And from her bed he falls off, chased by her vicious kicks, to plummet forever through the endless pit that he led her to…!
…
…
“UGH!?”
A statuette deprived of its darkness merely resembles the work of a prized sculptor now. This shining testament to the vision of one lady who sought to firmly establish the importance of another in her view of the world, it cannot be left to be destroyed.
And so Adris lightly tosses it into a pile of clothing.
Then falls to his knees, barely able to breathe.
A cyclonic view of the world has robbed any thoughts of importance. Only the bittersweet adoration exists at the forefront.
(STOP! I DON’T WANT THIS!?)
“I’m worthless, but I never break.”
(Then break now! I fucking hate you! Recite the litany against self-possession…!)
In defiance of the collapsing world, Adris tries to protect his mind from enemies that he can’t perceive by shutting it out. With Rantil gone, though…?
(Where is she!? I’ve got nothing to focus on like Neesiette served as!)
“Why can’t I break…?”
But he can’t avert his attention once he hears the poor man’s utterances continue. Pain that he once laughed at no longer provokes contempt no matter how much he wishes it would.
On his knees too, Falke, a man with no family name, stares at a violin resting on a stand next to an old man’s desk that he inherited. Once mended at its neck from a break, this brilliant dark wood piece with inlaid white gold trim has a signature in the same material. [D. Kestner] is what it reads as the man swings it up by the neck over his head.
“Why does only what… I cherish break? I mend broken things constantly, but can never prevent them from becoming trashed!”
And with a face bloated by grief, the unhinged Maker tries to vanquish an irreplaceable artifact that shines with a darkness whose intensity might match Adris’ own cross.
“WHY AM I ALIVE WHEN EVERYONE I CHERISHED DIED!?”
(WHY DO I ALWAYS SURVIVE WHEN I DON’T DESERVE TO!?)
To punish someone’s sins, he slams the instrument toward the ground, but strikes only the hands of a boy that slides in to become its victim without destroying it.
(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?)
“SPARE ME FROM THIS [FATE]!”
Both violin and what explodes from the insane dollmaker’s blackening body discharges into Adris stomach, ripping away all semblance of a “true” reality existing!
Only derisive screeches join in this time that slip past his mental defenses!
…
…
“Do you finally… have everything… you wanted?”
So wheezes the one confined to a bed of plated gold and gems. Thick furs cover a thin woman of immaculate breeding. Only the left side of her face is clearly revealed by the wrapped hood she wears even to bed.
Shining blue even in this moment, only the magic of her bloodline remains vital. The spirit of the woman is dead, a lifelessness that also dulls her voice.
For her face where light reaches to unseen parts reflects with brilliant flashes of red, green, blue, and…
“There are no Kestners left now but you, Dummke. You… used me as a puppet to build all this…”
Though it’s difficult for her, Dohle Kestner pulls her left arm free of the furs to gesture out into the unseen darkness beyond her bed. A hand that creaks as it moves is petrified instead of flesh, yet moves still in its own way.
And when a man’s hands rush to take her shining hand of stone and gems up into his own, she hisses in impotent fury that she can’t pull away.
“We’ve… the Kestners have never been stronger. Never ruled so many faithful. You… calculated it… well… khkk!”
A coughing fit comes over her then, answered by the man dipping a thin cloth into a cup of greenish liquid to soak and then place it over her mouth.
The recurring fear leaves Dohle’s eyes, her other revealing as an orb made purely of sapphire, wide with fright. Choking more than breathing at first, by the end she’s returned to unmoving.
Fear departs to leave only the bitterness of handicap.
“You’ll become family head and rule. If it’s you… then… even as deaf as you… are… you can…”
“There is only one Speaker, and it’s you!”
“… Who told you… that you could… talk…?”
“There will never be another Speaker! It is my duty to remind you of your importance!”
“… Right, you’ll… get rid of the rest of the Kestners… but you’re deaf… so, logically~…!”
“I will not! Never! You are irreplaceable!”
Something about her mood is stronger after this.
A feeling of hope floods through, for even the touch on her petrified hand feels…?
“Okay… then… after I am out of the way… you’ll fly away with Sapphira…”
“I will not! We both love you more than anything else in our lives! If you’ll… just let her back in, she will…”
Yet Dohle only sneers, sinking further into her pillow.
“Sapphira… lies the most. But you… can’t lie… never… have been… able to… but?” Hate returns once more, for Dohle stares hard. “Once you don’t have to… tip toe around a dead woman… you can finally do it in the open… finally go to her, tell her…”
“I have never done anything with her that you did not order! I would never go to her of my own will!”
“… Liar. You both only… hnnn, pretend to love… me…”
A mild wheezing comes back, a regular occurrence that prompts her caretaker to reach into the large kit beside her bed. Kept here at all times and growing through the years, the correct drops of soothing Striata grass are—
“Leave it! Leave… me…!”
Again, Dohle’s hand reaches out, this time to grip his arm. So weak that he could drag her out with little effort, he instead calmly pats it until she lets go.
“… Leave… me… to… finally…!”
Into his mouth is where he drops the measured dose, and then he moves closer. He pulls back the wrapping of her head.
“… No! No… hideous, STOP, NO…!
Angh!?”
To her lips go his, so that his tongue can let the drops slide past to her throat. A magical remedy such as this will work without failure, so long as it dissolves fast into the body of another.
When his expression remains unbothered at their kiss that becomes mutual, she ceases to thrash.
“There will never be another but you! I love only you. All that you’ve accomplished, no one else could have.”
“… Even you…?”
The meekest voice Dohle has ever used was developed during these last two years, saved for the roughest nights such as this one.
When the advancement of the Will’s curse grows toward the head, the first casualty of its arrival is normally…
“I could never have achieved… anything without you. I would have been kicked out. Died destitute.”
“… You promise…?”
“I promise.”
But Dohle has never lost all composure or sanity, only slipping at times into delirium. Even now, as tears well up in her eyes, even the one taken by the curse, she only succumbs to an expected quantity of despair.
Dohle Kestner is…
“… Please don’t… belong to anyone else. I… accepted this… curse… so you can’t…”
“I will never give up! This curse will not kill you! Even now, I’ve calculated the stellar paths that guide its ebbs and flows of earth power!”
“… Really?”
“Yes! It took twenty years! If he’d just… told me sooner…!?”
“… Twenty years… you’re so… bad at this, Dummke…”
“Yes! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry it took so long…!”
So hard he squeezes her petrified hand, leaving his own skin worryingly bruised to reach the point that she notices the sensation and squeezes lightly back.
“I can stop this! I will save you!”
“Hahahaha…!”
“Dohle?”
A musical performance like this is one he hasn’t heard for years. Dohle’s laughter, even with the hoarseness of the curse affecting her, is so…
“Right, right… Dummke is… the perfect Kestner…”
“I’m as far from perfect as is possible! I’m a worthless failure of one…”
“Ah, you lie so badly…”
The mistress of the Kestners, its brightest gem, smiles for once. Though, it’s not happiness that is felt radiating.
“You just… can’t help trying to swoop… in and save me, to steal all my glory…”
“Dohle, I really will! I will save you!”
“Of course you will…”
And then her other hand reaches over, the one completely taken by the petrification.
As if it is the hand of a golem, this perfectly smooth stone arm crushes his wrist.
“… Okay… so… you really do love me…? I see… I… guess then that…”
Dohle’s troubled breathing lessens in pain, then she closes her eyes.
“… If you love me… she does… too…
… then I… can…”
A strong resolve firms within Dohle.
All pain passes for a moment when she speaks.
“I loved you… too, Falke…”
And then something like sleep overtakes his mistress.
Her breathing slows.
And so the man goes to work, checking over her still exposed skin to measure distance from a previous location. Though usually composed, his hands shake violently after her last statement.
With a thin cloth ruler as guide, to his utter amazement and…
“… The petrification has spread… an inch and a half in one day…”
… absolute horror, this measurement betrays a certain rule about his world that appears to be crumbling around him. The radiance that his mistress emits just by existing is dimming, leaving the world also darkening proportionately.
“… Oh… that’s… very troubling.
I’m… not going to be able to save her, am I?”
A flash of shining black lightning cuts through the view of Dohle, leaving a bloodsoaked curse replacing the glittering one.
“Adris…”
Laying in the bed is instead a strong lady of suffering, whose seductively firm body is naked and soaked in blood.
“… Help me…?”
But it’s not her blood, and it rarely if ever is.
Nearly black eyes are common, but hers are like voids in white that invite a swift departure for safety.
Yet if she looks the part of an emotionless killer, suddenly that rare apprehension that claims her when she loses control takes over. She reaches out to be held, which is her answer for being “alone”.
“… Right… you can… help me, right, Adris!?”
Dripping arms expectantly wait for the usual compassionate hug, but Adris for once can’t find the lie for the situation.
“Serras…
I… can’t… stop you from wanting to kill…”
Her arms cling to his, yanking him closer to her infuriated face. Bathed in blood, with more rushing out around her, she ends up crying the same crimson mixture when she starts sobbing.
“Why didn’t you help me… Adris!?”
“Because, I couldn’t, I can’t…”
(GETOUTGETOUTGETOUTFUUUUUUUUCK, HELP ME, RANTIL!)
Salvation comes from the energy holding this vile memory together running out before he dies with it.
Serras’ body shatters into black pieces, leaving Adris plunging out the bottom of eternity.
(IF HE HAD EVERYTHING AND COULDN’T SAVE ONE WOMAN, THEN WHAT COULD A FOOL LIKE ME EVEN…!?)
“… can’t even fix myself!
How could I save anyone else!?”
…
…
“… I have… never accomplished a single thing.”
“AAAH!? Get away!?”
The violin is pushed back into the old man’s arms, this time with the impression that the will to destroy it has been vanquished.
“What… is wrong with you, demon?”
Instead of answering, Adris flees for the door that his own Talent pushed him through.
(GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, AUTHENTIC FICTION!)
— THE CLIMAX OF THE TALE, AVOIDED, CANNOT MOVE TO A [POETIC REVENGE] WITHOUT A PROPER [EVIL] AND [GOOD] —
— THE TALE REQUIRES THE CORRECT PLAYERS —
(I don’t need “players”! The revenge is over, DAMN IT!)
But he only makes it part way in his flight through the chaotic museum before he freezes. Arriving at the need for why he’s here, Adris has a horrible sensation that climbs his spine.
“But… there’s no one left to bring revenge to…!” So he speaks openly, despite the idiocy of voicing his thoughts.
“Revenge? Ah, revenge… I know what it feels like, being consumed by that…”
But it’s Falke that does answer him, unseen behind his collection now and growing firmer in tone.
“Revenge is what you crave, so you came to see me? Then, it’s not strange that you would show up to begin with! Perhaps a dark thing like you is the same kind as that…?”
(Something is happening!)
Besides his skin crawling, the watchers that released him no longer pay attention to Adris. Instead, he can feel that they invariably circle around the hidden Falke.
His continuing words are what keep them drawn here.
And it drags Adris back to confront Falke, as turning gears that once were muted restart with enormous speed.
For Falke, of no family of note, holds aloft a destroyed core that belonged to a victim of tonight.
“Mistakes were what it sought to redress! Much like that failure I originally made? Yes, in the old dwarven city, there were many riders of the Sulkhalûkh (TINY DRAGONS) that delivered messages throughout the buried traversal routes, but one in particular was legend?”
Orating for nobody in particular is not the behavior of this doll maker. Especially not when being this distraught should be crippling. But, the beclowned Pillar stares at the core he made, jubilant in expression.
“It bore the laments of those lost and defiled, of its own accord! Only the worst crimes could garner its notice, discovering the victims and delivering their frustrations to the source…
A ‘city tale’, more ghost story than reality it was, but ah, what was it called? I only heard it named once during a play.”
The whispers around threaten louder than Falke’s words. They scream in adoration of the cold, forthcoming name of the damned creature that is some boogeyman of ancient dwarves.
(What is going on!?)
But that egomaniac of a dandy butler then snaps his fingers, his expression a mask of joy that no human should wear.
The darkness that joined with Adris hums with the ambient energies of the watchers that gather to hear a naming.
“The [Sulkhalûkh-Anthânu] (LIZARD RIDER OF FELL OMENS)! ‘He that allows the wronged to share their curses with the guilty.’
Ahaha! What a damnable fairy tale, so pointless.”
After laughing, the man stops with his dramatics to sit on the desk.
Once named…
“Right… nobody is coming to punish us, no matter how much we deserve it.” Nothing happens, save for the old man to sigh. “The idea that anyone would be punished just because they’d committed an abhorrent crime is something only children believe, right, demon?”
And onto the ornate desk the broken dollmaker climbs, to cradle an empty bottle and cover himself in his unworn baggy jacket.
“Had your fill of me? Hopefully I performed my last task as your host admirably. Now… leave me.”
Revenge is once again abandoned, leaving a drunk man to slumber.
But for Adris, it is time to flee the moment the “moment” passes and the rushing sound of moving gears no longer compels him.
(Why isn’t it stopping its work!? Authentic Fiction is running wild!? WHAT IS THIS FEELING!?)
The feeling that Adris wants to turn around and bow for forgiveness to an old fool that ruined his life so many times…?
“If we deserve punishment… then we should see to our own.”
This is the last testament of Falke before Adris rips the door open to depart into an empty hall of the normal Unnatural Protean Manse.
Behind him, a hoard of memories languishes with its dead collector.
…
…
“FUCK!”
So a boy screams while tearing through a hallway.
To his left is frosted glass, showing the central gardens.
To his right is familiar temple wall, the manse’ architecture well known by this point.
And through open doors, Adris hustles, searching for anyone.
For the doors do not obey his charm gifted to him by a dead servant.
“Where the fuck is everyone!? I’ve been running for…?”
Every room is empty.
Every hallway is long.
No changes are ever discovered, except for the… distant smell of…
“That’s impossible.”
The smell cannot exist in a world with Vigor, except from Adris himself.
And so he continues to haul ass. Rabbit boots give him unending pep in his huge gait.
This isolation is only temporary…
“I AM NOT FALKE!”
And then he skids to a stop, for the thought won’t leave his mind.
“That man is a fool! He devoted himself to an… ideal woman that only exists in his cheese-eaten mind!”
Clutching over his chest to himself, Adris assures himself that a cruel woman like Dohle is one Adris would never…!?
“Well.”
And unfortunate comparison sends Adris careening down the hall again.
“FUCK HIM! HE NEVER KNEW PAIN LIKE WE DID! HE GREW UP IN COMPLETE LUXURY!”
A world of gems, stone, titanic warriors, and endless splendor! The finest tutors and servants!
(ALL WE HAD WAS BACKSTABBERS, DIRT, AND BLOOD!)
And ambitions alone are completely dissimilar…!
“Revenge is my specialty! Doll-fucking is his!”
As Adris steps out into the open night air, looking out from between pillars of this overhang to stare down at the carved abodes and workshops that proliferate this strata of the city, he wonders at how the makers accomplished the task of opening it to the outside of the mountain?
Every time he views this place, he cannot help but find wonder at the scale of engineering that turns a metropolis of three miles across into a tiered wonder that can fit inside a single mountain comfortably. While it is pleasant with sounds during the day, at night it is so quiet that it appears like the deepest of tombs.
“There is no world in which we are remotely similar!”
So he screams out, before returning to the avenue to complete his climb toward the top of the stratified city. At night, its paths are difficult even with torches as guidance, because drop offs into nothing are common.
“Besides, he spoke true on one subject. There’s no such things as ‘avengers of wrongs’…! No, wait.” Then he stops, blinking at that declaration. “I mean, other than me.”
Adris is unique, after all.
“Though, Still, too.”
That Adris and Still suffered similar routes in life and arrived at the same conclusion, “punish others”, is a testament to their resiliency of mind. Men on Xin that were wronged to the degree he was became depraved bandits, useless bodies, or went completely insane.
“They certainly didn’t get lost in a fucking dwarven city at…!
… At…?”
Midnight is the time, but something about this location seems…?
“Was this city… always so open?”
But instead of a reply, something scratches within hearing of Adris’ extremely tuned senses.
Into a defensive stance he slides, sacrificial arm extended so that he can bring out his—
(Where is my sel— I mean, cross!?)
Without a mystic cross as a tonfa or club, he can only lift both hands defensively to meet the scratching sound that climbs out of a hole in a pillar ahead.
Its long body matches the designs of its stone kin that curl around the entry. In fact, the narrow-snouted creature flicks a long tongue at them before starting over the side to climb down the pillar.
The smell of bloody death comes clearly from it.
(What the fuck is this thing.)
Utterly reptilian, the snake-hound like creature is greatly larger than any dog. In fact, its head alone could envelop Adris’ small self. Strapped to its gray, rough-scaled torso sits its rider, patting the abomination when it locks its yellow sight on Adris and nearly breaks into a charge.
(… Where… where is your…?)
But that rider, a stout, broad, and short chap wearing bracing gear and protective padding on his limbs has no need of protection elsewhere. Only a lantern of blue flame held in his hand illuminates above, but the curious absence of what’s necessary is plain even in dimness.
A completely decapitated rider seats on this great lizard that plops to the same set-stone pathway that Adris lingers on. Far from a cheery messenger, the pair exude an atmosphere of preparing for a hunt in the dark.
The moment he tries to flee, the opening mouth of this lizard, filled with a row of needles a foot long, will sink into Adris.
But, it’s not really the lizard that is most terrifying, nor the headless rider with a cape attached to his thick coat. Rather, it’s the cargo hooked behind the saddle’s back that drops Adris to his knees.
Dozens of heads, nicked clean and left to swing, bear silent witness to this one’s travels.
(Headless… rider…? Carrying more…?)
It tramps closer to him, a furious lizard monster without reigns obeying a placid rider who can only be a dead corpse. When this close, Adris can see that dried blood stains the entirety of the headless man’s torso.
But, then Adris looks back to the heads when the man swings his lantern to his left side.
Revealed is—
(…
…
… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!?)
Fingernails rip at his own face, for Adris’ inner scream cannot manifest outwardly with the death of all he cares about so sudden.
The rider’s free hand pats at three heads nearest to its leg.
Stark white, crystal green, and dark burgundy hair loops are what they’re suspended to the beast by. Frozen in perfect horror of the moment of decapitation.
Adris’ feverish shaking drives out self-belief, the concepts of hope and glory. He feels trapped within their unseeing open eyes. Nearly pointed at him, he’s clearly responsible for making sure they would never suffer such indignity.
Just recognizing them is enough to undo everything that has ever changed about him.
And plunge him entirely into…
(… Why can’t I save anything I care about…?)
This is what he whispers/screams to whatever made a cretin like himself, helpless to watch the rider pull a kobold’s head from his saddle.
Lifting it upward, when the rider unceremoniously slams the cut neck downward Adris nearly vomits.
Dark and dead blood spurts everywhere, then a crunching sends a spasm through a beloved idiot’s head…?
“… aaah…
… graaah…?”
The dead rider breathes in, sound coming from the head he placed when he exhales.
When she exhales…
“… Nah?
… Ah, there’s… Boss…”
In fullest mockery of life, a severed head of Kol fehl Dain, recently murdered, returns to animation to squint her glowing pink eyes at a figure frozen once they roll back into focus.
“Ahhh… right, finally, found Boss! Kol, looked all over, y’know?”
“You’re not Kol.”
“Kakaka!”
Exactly as Kol would at that declaration, the Kol rider cackles as loudly as it can.
“Lie! Another lie! Boss, always lies, even when Kol right before the Boss? Really bad ‘spirit’, Boss got!”
(… This isn’t real. It’s not real. That’s not Kol…! She’s dead, so it can’t be Kol…! They’re all dead, so they can’t be alive…!?)
But the smell of this Kol is the same.
It’s just heightened by the onset of demise and the beginning of decay.
“Huh, Boss, always thinking he’s the smartest.”
(… I usually am.)
But other than just these three, the rest of the heads cause Adris’ teeth to chatter.
For behind his dearest ones, are…?
(Oh, everyone I’ve ever killed… or gotten killed…)
All save for Serras, behind the beautiful-even-in-death Still are the tea shop lady that Serras murdered, a familiar buried Empty Crypt sect member, the bloated heads of several Xin’Reh soldiers that were poisoned, and…?
(NOT ME NOT ME NOT ME NOT MEEEE!)
“Huh, Boss, ‘scared shitless’?”
As Adris can only bend forward while gripping his head to keep it from exploding, it certainly seems like he’s losing his grip.
“Guh, Kol, huge mistake, to follow a shitty Boss that brings so many people to wanna ‘gild’ him. And, so…”
Shrugging her shoulders, the bloody rider kobold with red-soaked hair and skin grumbles. Then, she reaches down to her waist with her free hand…
And pulls loose an uncoiling whip with a bladed length.
“A shitty Boss that lies gotta face up to what happens to liars.”
Huffing once, as if annoyed to have to wait, the lizard beast begins to plod forward. Its prey makes no attempt to flee, though, knowing it to be completely useless.
Whatever exists before Adris, this murderer that stalks an entire city under cover of night, it is to this monstrosity that the clinging, whispering shadows flow toward.
To join with it and…
Beneath a shining black moon and white sky, all that has transpired from Adris’ birth to his death will be finalized.
“Hey, Boss! What gets called up, what you want so badly to happen, has to come to the ‘happen’ part, right?”
So says the kobold that still drips blood from her mouth. Testing her whip once on a table nearby, Adris flinches when the streaking black weapon winds around the stone table top and easily slices through it when flicked back.
Seeing it thump heavily to the pavement in a spray of rock proves that this will shortly be lethal.
— [A POETIC REVENGE], SOUGHT AS IT WAS WITH THE TALE, MAY NOW ONLY BE ACHIEVED BY AN ALTERATION OF THE PLAYERS —
— GOOD AND EVIL HAVE BEEN REASSIGNED —
— GOOD NOW NEEDS NO GUIDE —
(You… you are… fucking kidding me, EH!?
[AUTHENTIC FICTION]!?)
“Kol, not really understand what Moon call ‘poetry’, but since Kol, ‘GOOD’ now, then ‘EVIL’ must be…?”
A bladed whip slinks by Adris’ nose, almost shaving it off if the boy hadn’t leaned back at the precise time of need. Instead, only a single drop of blood falls onto his hand when he lifts it up to check.
“AH, though, Kol definitely understands ‘revenge’! Elf say, ‘poetry, fun’! So, if Kol wants to have a ‘fun revenge’…?”
— WITH THE REASSIGNMENT OF PLAYERS, LET US CONCLUDE THE TALE WITH A RESPLENDENT CLIMAX —
So speaks the Emperor, before returning to silence forevermore to abandon service.
The lizard’s breath is dank when it fills the surroundings. A mist that chills to the core has erupted around them, sealing off all access to those not about to die.
All so that a cheeky, dead kobold can grin in that wolfish way she always used to when alive.
“How about as a good story, ‘all the betrayers who betrayed each other, and everyone else, all ended up…
getting dead together, with nobody escaping from getting ‘fixed’?”
After saying that,
All of the assembled watchers who gathered to witness Adris face their punishment howl in laughter/sadness at his foretold end.
““““““““““nObOdY cAlLs Us — FAKE —!””””””””””
To die, eaten by this “little dragon” that can swallow him in two bites, or to get decapitated by the ghost wearing the head of one he failed.
This is the price for “betraying” the watchers like he did earlier today by refusing to let them join him.
By calling one of their “kin” fake and consigning two children to oblivion.
(… And I’d… deserve it…)
“Oh, what would Moon say for now? ‘Justice is knight, but knight is not justice until justice is done!’ KAKAKAKA!”
Hearing this bragging girl cheerily roar out something so nonsensical shatters what’s left.
It was hard enough to see them dead. To also hear what he loved warped by her killer, Adris can no longer…
[I’ll absolutely kill you.]
And so he springs forward, eagerly shedding an arm when the lizard’s jaws snap. Having such sharp teeth and powerful muscles is a boon, rather than a burden. Instead of getting held by the bite, the monster’s ripping motion joins with his own to free him.
With his soul flayed alive, no pain registers.
Only a burning DESIRE overwrites the screaming humanity inside him, locked as it is away from facing death.
Choosing the right flank of the beast, he hopes that the splash of blood that strikes its eye blinds it long enough to climb it and kill. With the aid of his rabbit boots and the flash of red that enters his psyche…
[I can NEVER forgive this.]
Its whip is on the other side. Left without open hands, it cannot defend itself with a hidden weapon draw.
With only his left dagger-strike hand to do so, Adris aims for the face of the first girl he’s ever fallen in love with solely because it chose to happen…!
“Boss, so easy~!”
A quick wind up swing of its lantern, a curious choice, is made with more concise dexterity than Kol ever could’ve achieved.
It was also in motion as he leaped in to strike.
(Oh, right, I was predicting what Kol could d—)
“BAAAGH!?”
The low-swung lantern slams into his stomach, crushing it and ejecting its juices into the rest of his abdomen. It also launches him fifteen feet into the air from the sheer impact.
Though he ignored the loss of an arm, to be deprived of revenge leaves the psychological pain unbearable when he hears the whistle of death.
A flashing streak encircles his neck, grinding closer as he impotently watches. It’s not as if he can grab a hold of the whip’s length without instantly losing his hands.
(… I’m… not going to win…)
And the last thing he sees is the face of his killer proving him right, a dashingly handsome kobold girl licking her bloody lips with such erotic fixation to the act.
She bathes in his blood spray as her lizard mount lazily sidesteps to avoid his plunging corpse’s impact beside it.
His severed viewpoint soars away with an arc, only able to hear her last gloat before dropping off the edge of reality into the great unknown below.
“And then, all, become… nOnE.
THE — END.”
A cracking sound is the only accompaniment to this claim.