“… presenting still, an unexplained…!”
The squealing of a chair finalizes the boundaries of a killing ground.
“… diversion from our acquirement of workers, t-the…!”
It is large than its porter, who struggles to drag the heavy piece into its optimum emotional placement. Wrenching it with a desperate twist, she “flings” it and then totters back into balance.
“… placement of unnecessary furniture be, given the lack of time remaining…”
(Because we lack time I have to assure victory in one go.)
And so his ideal meeting place matches his vision, finally.
(They won’t deny evidence they make obvious.)
A table that slopes now, but fills the space before the throne of a Kestner-wannabe.
Three chairs that either melt up or subtly reach beyond their limits, arrayed around it just perfect—
“Leave it there!”
“… Asymmetry be hideous. A round table, throne and three chairs circling, seating in cross forma—”
(I moved all but one of them for you!)
“It’s supposed to be asymmetrical, by design it forces a nervousness that favors us!”
Only when Adris physically pulls her away does she release it.
“… It… it has to be like this. Certain moods force others to respond the way you want them to…”
“Repugnant, reviving a malfunctioning creation registers as, and to all others shall be shared this truth!”
“Fehr was never malfunctioning, Neesiette! She… she was…”
But there’s little time to explain a full story, for the sloping table and drooping chairs are emblematic of the mutation spreading through the manse. The pillars grow misshapen arms frozen in pursuit of targets. Flowers and plants of gems and rock turn fleshy in texture, but sharp as jutting icicles.
The greens and grays that filled this holy place in mimicry of a distant home are putrefying. With the steady lines and corners now grotesquely meandering, the manse’s lacking heart frees the body to experiment.
(It matches what pseudoprósōpon truly is!)
And if one listens, as both do when flinching at the groans rising from the foundation itself, Falke’s inheritance starts to rumble with grander alterations still unseen. They jostle the entire garden before subsiding.
“Obliteration be deserved for a creation that betrays its creator! Presenting never, a justifiable reason may not.”
No matter how unnerved a doll can get, Neesiette will never forgive what she witnessed in Falke’s shop. Only a violet gaze fullest of despise toward the core resting on the table is permitted attention.
(Two chairs placed away from the throne, opposite side of the table. While one is nearest to the throne on its side, for the benefit of showcasing or… determining if I have a willing ally. Either way, unnerving.)
Neesiette can never comprehend the psychology of mortals and fiends, for she’s never had humanity to hinder her. Never will she play with the possibilities that pure acting can unleash by dominating others through subtle and striking symbolism.
(She can only be how she was made to be, which is what I’ll play with.)
“The betrayal wasn’t hers…”
“Incorrect, in fullest opposition this lady presents that a mal—!”
And from her Adris turns, while lifting a fist that he squeezes in “pain”…
“… the betrayal was mine.”
“—indeed?”
Toward the silver throne he escapes to sit upon it. A pensiveness is what he chargse through himself, an unwillingness to let his face be seen by the moon fairy that pursues.
(Right, I was spotted talking to myself. I can’t let that last in her mind. I’m either “insane or scheming”…)
That Fehr was murdered twice by her creator is a fire through his arteries. His heart is pain that joins his own with created’s against their mutual target. But despite the gnawing violence he craves to unleash…!
“Nobody understands the laments of those that are less able…” He allows that pain to shape the framing of this lure toward Neesiette, the “truthful fib” that will re-establish the right dynamic between them.
“Referring to who, this particular unshared lament does?”
“It… no, I wasn’t really talking about anyone, or anything, in particular…”
Because she can recognize overt pain, but lacks the social pedigree to see past emotional lies, Neesiette deliciously…!
“Hide not one’s circumstances behind a crumbling facade.” Places her hands upon his, to squeeze. “One close to this lady, a…” Adris “flinches” when his face is searched, looks away to hide his “horror”! “… vessel, failed in one’s duties to… an emperor, perhaps?”
When Adris only stiffens up, Neesiette softens her piercing questions.
“Describe calmly one’s circumstances, perhaps… young one?”
“… N-No… that’s not…”
“Adris, obvious it be, one’s decline into the mentality of a youth bereft of otherworldly support.” Neesiette has a cold face like usual, but then blinks when noticing his fright and offers a softer gaze. “Kol being an example, this lady by necessity now instructs and shepherds those bereft of parental figures.”
“… Well… I…?”
(Ah, you’re just too easy to play with when it’s like this, Neesiette!)
If it’s a lie that can be unmade by logic, Adris will lose ninety-nine out of a hundred times.
But if it exists only in the perception of what’s unsaid and inferred by a lady lacking in common sense about humans, then he’s got a fighting chance of fooling her.
And so he explains without explaining. Taking his time, leading her slowly through it while barraging her with impressions.
“… When all of it adds to me… it’s the… ah, it’s a…?”
(Let’s separate “Adris” from “the emperor” just enough…)
Unsure of how to describe it, [Adris who is a boy] slumps without vitality. “A mantle of strength, when I’m wrapped up in him…? Nothing appears before me except what should serve! I’ve got… no distracting thoughts or… lesser inhibitions like ‘worries’, because that potency, that conquering nature, drives it all far away!”
“Therefore, ‘ideas, inclinations, and driving force’ be the true nature of this ‘emperor’ witnessed in action?”
From all of the drivel, Neesiette draws her own conclusions that share a bit of what she’s proving to herself. Quieting in her rage from earlier to softly take up his hand instead, what she settles upon in snippets guides Adris’ fabrications.
“Such a relationship be expected, extrapolated from other data. A vessel be overlaid by a [greater mind] (ENTITY OF ABNORMAL PLANAR BREADTH)?”
“Mind? No, he’s… not a mind. Whatever I know about him is just a reflection of myself from the black, mirrored lake I rest in within myself. I’m not the first, you know, just one vessel in an endless collection… haha…!”
“Indeed, the very same being shares this definition.”
“Ah, then, even how I talk, I’m… changed, permanently by touching it all…? But, I can’t… match or change him…”
“The whole tale without any particulars” is the creeping poisonous fog that envelops those with the keenest minds.
In a silent garden that mutates by the moment, even this foolproof moon fairy can only twist in circles attempting to deduce it all with such lacking specifics.
(Perfection from one end of competency is demanded, but you’ll aid the incompetents who aren’t expected to prevail!)
“The emperor’s own pain flooded in.” So Adris sells her a peek into the true self of “his emperor”, a story she clings to closely. “Something old… drove into me, and I wasn’t strong enough to guide that huge source of ideas to the right truth. I… told him that Falke was solely at fault, and for the wrong thing…!” Adris slams the throne’s arm, all his true despair fueling the act.
“Never comprehending, nor standing equal, with lesser beings shall greater ones, for they cannot diminish, Adris. Achieving parity by developing oneself, this be one’s greatest error in pursuing.” So she pats his hands again, soothing with that bell-like tone of hers. “As this entity desires, be molded without attempting ‘comprehension’, for understanding of lesser human creatures be all that one may grant in turn.”
(And there you have it! I’m now a tramp who is ever “lesser”! But, also…)
“No… no, but…!”
“Aiding one in becoming an appropriate tool for a greater entity this lady shall in the future.”
“Wait! He’s… no, that thing isn’t even a he to begin with… so a lot of what I’ve done is… sort of, my fault…”
A meekness that’s unusual for Adris fires Neesiette’s curiosity. She looms closer, maintaining the same dominating aura that she uses when taking over any conversation.
“A child, even if older, be one, cast into the fires of conquest and erotic degeneracy. No blame lay with one’s attempts to appease a brutal emperor’s ambitions. One’s duties, carried out well and with very human guidance and sufficient morals that mend the emperor’s own chaotic excesses. Claiming responsibility, then, in what matter does one?”
“It, no… I, to you… when, we’re near each other and… and…?”
(Who is the source of my attraction to you? Guess it!)
Adris pulls his gaze from her when she comes too close. Blushing about their proximity, the strange action unleashes Neesiette’s wildest deductions…!
“Overlaying, but not the source of, responsibility…?”
To her dress to hold it tightly to her waist she rushes. Violet eyes wide, with recognition of what his uncomfortable sweating means, register the awkwardness to send her stepping away.
“Then, actions ever represent the duality of human and greater mind? Then… one’s…?”
“I’m sorry! If you hate me now, I under—!”
“One’s apology be rejected! Not currently, a subject of discussion…!”
Delicate is how he’d describe her expression, gazing at Adris for the second time tonight as if she’s seen the boy for the first time.
“Later… repercussions thereof, another time exists to discuss lurid details.”
“Sure…”
(How does it feel to have a ‘kid’ after you, Neesiette, and the one that really enjoyed you?)
“One’s exceptional talents and experiences alone shall resolve this issue,” Her solution is to seek to leave the garden. “While this lady seeks respite from three ot—ADRIS!?”
When she tries to depart, Adris jumps from the chair to wrap his arms around and drag on her.
(… What am I doing!?)
His sudden panic brings a ripple to his shadow. Stretched out by the soft lights of the garden, it’s from here that an emotional hand reaches to grasp his heart.
A cold flush of concern, tinged by outrage…
(“Who’s fuckin’ with yah now!?” You’re in a rush.)
They’d been cut off previously by the unknown power of the beings beyond the Veil, yet Still’s new link allows the minutest of feelings to flow over even distances. When the monster died, she reached out immediately. While he cannot truly hear her, when he speaks into his shadow…
“We… are only safe if… everything goes as planned.”
His shadow ceases to fluctuate, his message conveyed.
An annoyance passes along. A stinging rebuke.
(“Did you forget that I’m a miracle-working witch, idiot boy?” She’ll get them here.)
To this anchor that drags down, the lady only puts a hand to pat him reassuringly.
“… No imperilment currently exists to threaten this lady.”
“Right… but, you can’t leave until this is fixed.”
“Reason, to be stated promptly?”
(Because they’ve already tried to get to me through you once!)
“If I’m going to stand a chance of perfecting something, only ‘Neesiette’ can achieve it for me!”
“Purpose, equally important?”
“No matter how strange what I am to do appears, I’ll need you to aid me in repairing that.” He pulls away to allow his sweating to show, maybe to convince her that he’s as weak as he feels at the moment. “If it’s not you, this can’t succeed!”
(It’s necessary to have an object of obsessive hatred to aid in reviving her!)
The sole being that gave Fehr her first real “humanity” huffs silently before Adris with a downcast mood.
“One’s own will and an emperor’s obsession, claim now truthfully.” Toward the high tree Neesiette points, indicating a battleground. The broken remains of a Regalia clings to a limb above. “Purpose of this task, revenge, some nefarious goal, or amending wrongs to aid Falke?”
“Neither I nor the Emperor would ever think of helping Falke…!” Adris has no need to fake the blinding rage that flows through him.
(Still you defend him!? Want to save that bitch!?)
But he does need to calm down to arrive at the right answer for this impassioned Lunamaton.
With a sigh, he places a hand over his beating heart.
“I swear, I just don’t want to be the villain. Someone totally innocent was harmed in our feud.” And to Fehr’s core he gestures, the real goal of tonight. “To redeem that worthwhile creation of his, to do… something profound, to create something beautiful like… well, like…”
When he can’t name who he’s emulating, only stare uncomfortably and Neesiette before looking away, the Lunamaton tilts her head in confusion.
Then, she turns toward the empty throne…
“Attraction to and valuation of others, vessel or unknowable existence perhaps only understandable as an ideal, from which derives these… conquering behaviors that pursue ‘just’ goals and… ‘beauty’, Falke…?”
To a missing man she poses this question, so lowly that Adris “can’t hear”.
(Ah!? “Which man truly wants me, the vessel or the master”!? A woman’s prerogative is to fantasize!)
Once done, she turns back and huffs.
“Be it truthful, this lady’s essentialness?”
“It can’t be anyone but you! Not only are you my savior, but you’ll be everyone’s!”
“How… dramatic.”
But not unwelcome, for Neesiette’s rigidity lessens.
“The core element to success! Please, save me!”
“Save oneself! But… but, one’s ambitions may be shared.”
(Narcissism is your yoke, my love! I am the one leading you by it!)
All praise fulfilled ending in Neesiette lifting her chin, he can move on to the sell.
“The Emperor’s lesson is ‘narrative and ruling without tyranny’! Not only me, but everyone has to learn what he’s teaching. A lesson even for you!”
“Indeed? Elucidate.”
Brought out of her reverie, Neesiette suddenly grows interested by the concept of a lesson.
“The ‘Art’ he uses isn’t one I can replicate without ritual, so only you can help me do more with less! I know… what I should do, so how comes from you and the evil people arriving. Only when I solve everything can I redeem myself…!”
“Aiding in redemption be a worthy task for this lady.”
Though she doesn’t deign to agree with his hopes, Neesiette allows herself to listen to the full goal of Adris’ plot.
But when she hears what her role will be and the emotions she must leave them burning with, Neesiette can only stare at Fehr’s core.
“Key to Falke’s salvation this malfunction stands as? Such a… bizarre ritual. Be this truly a means of manifesting an emperor’s sweeping ‘blackness’?”
“Though he’s abandoned me for the moment, his will still seethes into the world around us when his wisdom is invoked! You’ll see! I’d never lie to you about ‘Art’, Neesiette.”
“One’s qualities of companionship and bravery, noted before when previously bereft of the emperor.”
“Oh? When…?”
Adris can’t help but wonder, yet his comrade is quick.
“Against the Grand Distortion one sacrificed oneself to achieve victory. Of one’s trust in this lady’s efforts with [Brings an End], remembering fondly this lady does.”
Though she offers a rare smile that actually brings creases to her face, Adris can only dig fingernails into his palm while falsely sighing like a wild dog that just received praise for the first time.
(I have to nearly die to rank as worthy!?)
“Then, which chair claims this lady?”
“Oh, for your part, Neeiette, well, I need you to be like this!”
Into his arms he swoops her, to then hop upon the throne.
Pointing her out toward the table, Adris now has himself the perfect “lap pet” to accentuate his role.
“Just sit here like this, really attractively with that cold beauty you always favor! Someone as powerful as you sets a tone! Draws whispers…”
With one hand on her head and stroking it kindly, and the other resting on her thigh to rub over her splendid dress, it sends the most depraved signals about what he’s done in the absence of proof.
“Right, RIGHT! With that expression there, the one that says ‘oh no, I stepped on a roach’! It’s surging strength through me already!”
(For the moment, she’s confused enough not to destroy my disguise! I’ll have her struggling to figure out which “me” she should be mad at.)
“You’re really into this, Neesiette, for you to turn it on me~!”
“Highly responsive to future empirical success or failure, this lady shall become.”
And with the lap tiger simmering with resentment, unable to physically or emotionally punish “a kid following an Emperor’s plan”, Adris’ sinister smile when three sheep enter to be sheared is authentic.
“Since I realized mine, it’s time that everyone else realized their own errors.”
Those destined to die now unveil every telling detail about their positions and ambitions without picking up a single tile to play.
Other men care little for details, but the smallest ones betray everything.
(For instance, the chair nearest to me is still empty.)
At the misbegotten gathering spot which is barely level enough to hold a drink without spilling, only two have chosen to sit.
One reverses her chair, mounting it from the front so that her arms can hang off and rest from the back. This golden-haired goddess languidly stares only at the great tree above.
“My Chippy Choppy Baby…
My happy threshing boy…”
This constant mantra muttered beneath the shadow of a swept cavalier’s hat is all Lycia will chant. Her only prize and most valued possession (more than even “kin”) hangs by what’s draped out of its internal structure over a gargantuan limb dozens of feet into the sky. The shadows Lycia chooses to linger in are cast by it, and it barely conceals the festering resentment that Adris swears is a smoke clinging to her.
(She hasn’t sprung at the throne to rip my guts out to match her Regalia, so we’ll consider that a minor win and proof that I can mend things if I return it to her.)
If a ghoul’s mercenary loyalties are easy to fix by the solution, then the moods of two others now throw Adris off completely. Rather than fierce opponents or joined by temporary companionship born of shared despise, a winged harpy empress sits not at the table but behind a kraken-crazed curator.
“Mmmm, now it’s too sweet~. You’ve really let yourself go, Sapphy my dear~.” The easy, very “uncle-sounding” tone he chooses is sorely out of place considering the way he fills both the chair and surrounding floor with his lower mass of tentacles.
“It’s always hard to make tasty things for tasteless guests. I’ll try again, Squidly.” But Sapphira’s demeanor remains so frigid that the animated puppet of pure water, one that pushes another porcelain teacup off the edge to noisily shatter, might freeze and tumble after it.
Three shard-filled puddles already lie converging below.
(That asshole dollmaker called him a “gentlemanly friend”, but why are you treating this scum like a king?)
Winner of the “duel with daughters”, Sapphira retains the clinging tentacles that jealously covet her watermelons without a stain of Vigor left to stain them. Straining to be free, all the happy jiggles with every magical gesture that her lush figure makes distracts even now. Only her face has shed its oblong-eyes mask, allowing the stern matron’s hateful glare to blaze upon Adris’ skin once changing her target and leaving him wanting to climb behind the throne to hide.
At Orloss’ back, and beck and call at all times, the matron’s loyalties appear dual-purpose; for, the monolithic eye that peers down from above with passing interest leaves both cloyed by a haze like ozone clinging to them.
(Same authority of this kraken, a binding history. One I need to understand, before I make another mistake like with Falke and Dohle’s relationship.)
The time devoted to letting all three stew in looming silence causes his pet to tap his leg.
Still stroking her hair idly, Adris cannot allow even her newfound impatience to distract from seizing the moments to come.
(The first to speak loses. Only one carefully chosen comment will take them all into my grasp.)
And so Adris continues his observations with head leaning impetuously on a hand.
All below him is beyond notice.
When the previous night began, it was here that gross pomposity had hidden in a mist with a treasure in his lap.
But with the dynamic upended, none miss Adris’ greatest showpiece.
The former master has vanished.
His manse decays into chaos under starless skies. The gardens bear all the scars of the previous revolt, with half-absorbed bodies sinking still.
A Lunar mistress that man sought now rests in the lap of the one who claims his throne. Obeying the hand that pats her head, reassuring her that all is as foreseen and according to design.
(And all the enticements and insults are laid out.)
Falke’s banners are shredded at Adris’ feet, forming a “carpet” leading away. Dozens of broken cores are piled about the throne’s base. Every wrongful detail that he could set up in his brief time presents the opposite of what long-time visitors and residents would expect.
(I’d bet anything it’ll be Orloss that lashes out first.)
The throne was a sign of Falke’s power, but the uniform jacket “carelessly” left for Adris’ feet to rest on relishes instead in conquest of his memory.
(Only Orloss has the look of a mastermind “tutting” at the ineptitude of those who missed that this was all his plot.)
After pulling a pickled fish from an open tin, lifting it overhead and then stripping it with his curling tongue alone, the over-pleased Pillar starts to chuckle. “Hmm, a little itch or even a black eye…” Swallowing and laughing at once, Orloss manages this grotesque feat and then allows Sapphira to wipe his lips of the fish oil. “I’d hoped you might jostle him a bit! Get that peak ‘Bastard Falke’ energy back in motion, make sure that little calamity wasn’t staying, but… this?”
Orloss’ tentacles flick about, stroking a nearby automaton reaching blindly toward escape above. Stuck halfway in the floor and clutching black feathers, this one didn’t dissolve.
“‘Coring’ his bloody manse was never even a consideration! My hat’s off to you, boy! Few could embarrass a Pillar so thoroughly as this, ahem, even with the aid of another one.”
Orloss’ feigned cough and admission fluffs the head harpy’s feathers. Her impassioned gaze reverts to the mastermind, three blocks of sugar surreptitiously being tossed by a watery butler into his cup when he fails to notice.
“For this feat alone, you have my… well, mildest thanks! My dearest Falke will now have much to do and little time for it, hahaha…!”
(Yes, you’d hoped for his failure without a need to engage in it yourself. But, why?)
Because Adris cannot speak, only offer a constant dismissive presence of overwhelming mystery, it falls to his advocate.
“[Project: Instant Fortress] represents the objective, ‘the deployable sanctum for the breaching of the capitol city on that fateful, distant day of judgment’.”
“Nnnrn?”
“Required by the loathsome scum of the deep to become a failure, this prototype manse represents a long-time project of great importance for Peak Zenith. Falke’s standing exchanged for this plot, an inability to deliver upon promises assures a demotion of importance. In essence…”
Neesiette frowns, then turns away from the obscene backstabber.
“Conspiracy against one’s betters, carried out without risking oneself. ‘Vermin Orloss’, as expected of such a creature.”
“Snooping as I knew you always were, deceitful little…!?”
“Primary goal sought, ‘demotion of Falke’, to another named ‘Orloss’ warrants a promotion in such a reordering. Feigning friendship in pursuit of skullduggery, such be the true nature of ‘noble Pillars’.”
Resenting this role when explained, nonetheless Neesiette is precise like the knife Adris requires to cut through the husk of the matters at hand. It’s her inhuman candor that allows him to stay silent.
(“Make the both of them hate you until their mentalities collapse.” But, I’m not sure I agree about Orloss’ goal.)
“You were always out for me, weren’t you, chaotic bug!? Especially me!”
“… ‘Head Curator’, title claimed as such, a loathsome personality and lacking expertise one truly possesses to sully such a position.”
Orloss slams his hands on the table repeatedly like a spoiled child when Neesiette avoids having to lie. The teacup jumps, but Sapphira doesn’t rescue it.
“THOSE DEEP DIVINATIONS DIDN’T JUST ‘COINCIDENTALLY’ BACKFIRE ONLY WHEN I WAS THE ONE DOING THEM!”
“Blame inability, either of oneself or that which creates imperfect abominations such as an ‘Orloss’.”
(Blame god, huh?)
“And Sapphira!? Why don’t you tell me why hers also fail!?”
At this, Neesiette finally tilts her head, a frown forming.
“‘Student, apparent instructor, neither extricating from the incapability of the other even with the passing of time’, simply explained this be.”
“I am quite the better of us two, intruder.”
With hatred as her only stated goal, Neesiette doesn’t even bother to address Sapphira when insulting. Only staring at the table that continues to sag, the moon fairy’s emotionless condemnations draw forth equally apocalyptic rage from the bristling harpy.
(You don’t have to tell them the truth about what he asks, just “a truth”!)
For Adris strokes Neesiette’s hair, while she destroys all conceits through uncaring assessments.
Earning ever more ire, it’s the emotions that fluctuate their surroundings with twitches that others miss.
“Well, well, well, then it’s all the better that we’ll have a long time to figure out with your help how we’re so incapable!” Orloss chugs his tea, but it’s a tentacle slithering along the floor toward the throne from his cane that speaks of unleashing aggression. Up from his chair he rises to run his hands over several of his bizarre frock coat’s baubles.
(A check of killing goods.)
“I’m so terribly grateful for your aid, dear boy, so we’ll keep much in touch through my aids and their close observations! But, as they say, ‘humble victors should quickly fade from consciousness’! And, so…”
Without even a finger lifted by Lycia to oppose this, Orloss’ tentacle rod squirms tendrils toward Adris’ body.
“… It’s time for you to be off that throne, with your three little minxes and out of my life for a bit.”
“Immediately betrayed, one’s agreement stands as, befitting the party involved.”
“Oh no, no, no, my petite catastrophe, it is you who betrayed our agreement! ‘Falke will make a duplicate, so you can leave the real one’, that would’ve worked… but…”
Lightning arcs between the three tentacles like a chaotic triangle pattern drawing in the air!
The smell of sulfur rankles, but Orloss only deeply chuckles!
“I don’t think dearest Falke is going to have much time for pranks with his permanent reassignment under my tenderest ministrations forthcoming in mere hours, once Master Peak looks outside to see his precious prototype melting like warm ice cream! And I’ll be too busy preparing to save Falke’s hide from Peak’s disappointment to do it myself~! So, if you look at it this way, it’s really your owner’s revenge that betrayed you~!”
“Illogical and depraved, one’s ambitions and viewpoint both reveal as.”
This is the final betrayal saved up for Adris, that his brief associate in revenge would be so eager to cast him into the ravine where Falke was tossed. Like a regent’s seneschal the day after a poisoning, the kraken-crazy bastard rubs his hands feverishly with much to do ahead of him.
“So, take care of my new friend Miss Ave, while I elimin— ahem, care for our mutual nemesis!”
(And so it’s my time to act.)
[A LIFELINE WHICH LOSES ITS EXTERNAL STAR WILL NECESSARILY LEAD INSTEAD TO THE HEART OF THE NIGHTMARE.]
(The perfect words to act upon he spoke, after all, and I like the timing…)
Almost as if he is being aided by others, Adris listens to the clockwork precision of his Talent announce a shift in gears with this knowledge on his mind.
If others provide their own evidence, then their place within horror should announce itself.
“And who will ‘take care’ of those who mistakenly believe dawn is going to greet them beyond these walls?”
He summons forth all of the hatred for this overbearing prison of replicas and dead ambitions that he’s amassed, letting it give his dark voice dimensions that sound should not possess.
Even Neesiette gives the smallest of starts, while Lycia finishes biting off a sharp nail to leer at Adris knowingly.
(Where did I hear those words from, though?)
It is not wisdom from the Emperor or his mobile library.
Instead, it’s like it’s etched into his Inner Expanse, feeding Authentic Fiction…
“Hmm!?” Arcing tentacles draw back as if struck! “What conspiracy are you hatching now? Oh!? It’s another prank! Of course you’d have some follow up plot, how naive you are, though~!” No matter frivolous the claim, Orloss returns to his seat with prompt manners. He locks his concentration in studying Adris. “As if I’d have ‘come a calling’ to Falke’s manse without a secondary and cleaner team at least thirty men strong a piece? Let me guess, my devil boy, the arrogant but naive you has a group of lunk-headed Chosen waiting for your signal to storm in?” Spinning his own narrative for Adris when silence is the answer, Orloss waves to his maid to come closer. “Sapphy, check, oh probably, halfway down the cliffside with your scrying! There’s likely three or four busybodies hiding in one of their spherical sensory voids that smoking witch likes to whip up!”
“… There should’ve been a warning by now if there were an unscryable location.”
Muttering this under her breath, the matron lifts her wings on command. A familiar sheet of ice rises from the floor with a chill exuding from its perfectly smooth mirror face.
(Perfect…)
The mists her cold summons wind around the mirror that sees distant places.
“What’s wrong with the location…?”
Sapphira ticks closer to it to peer deeper once it doesn’t reveal a cliffside but instead a black shadow that matches her own swaying girth.
“… What’s wrong with the location…?”
Her own question echoes, prompting Sapphira to gasp, then poke the mirror.
“It’s feeding back. Did you set up something to block outgoing scrying, Squid—LY!?!”
Black wings stretch also from the ice, a noisy chaos sucking onto Sapphira’s right breast and left hip!
“FREEFREEFREEFREEFREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“MONSTER!?”
Talons drag on the muck of the garden floor, providing no purchase when the matron resists the white-eyed, blazing phantom’s mad rush to pull her through the mirror.
“BE LIGHT TOO, WE ALL WILL
BEEEEEEE—!”
“[JOLTING]!”
A tentacle slaps the mirror, erupting it into a shattering, steaming explosion with purple lightning coursing to its base.
“DDDDDIIIIEEE—————————————!!!!!”
Half of the phantom is left screaming on the outside of the mirror when the shattering bisects it. Still clinging to its anchor, the stillborn copy of Sapphira composed of black noise tries to climb onto her!
“BEGONE!”
The harpy folds her wings between herself and the monster, then slashes outwards with them flinging blades of water to carve the quaking chaos into screaming self-destruction. Just like the evil Kol rider, it darkens the atmosphere with its poison of non-existence before the dying light of the garden’s candles relight fully.
(Ah, it’s so much nicer when that happens to someone else.)
Sapphira collapses into Orloss’ chair, breathing heavily and staring at the melting, hissing mirror.
Orloss quickly pours her a cup of tea, absentmindedly muttering to himself while pulling out a metallic, circular object and popping it open to twist pointed knobs.
(Stop seeming like you want to flay me, please.)
Lycia’s foot won’t stop tapping.
No longer crying softly about the fate of her enormous golem, instead she rakes sharp, battle-hardened nails over the table. The stench of violence and whispers of battle linger in the aftermath of what was almost called into being but didn’t last long enough to raise a real challenge.
The silence aside from Orloss’ one-sided mumbling lingers for quite a while, with all gazes now fixed on Adris as he shifts from one hand to the other. Relishing in how they follow the florid movement.
(What others unleash can’t be called “my fault”.)
“Yes, it’s… great talking to you again too, Kyros! Oh, certainly, we’ll be here waiting for you when you and Resindia and the rest arrive. We’ll allllll go back to the Grand Collection together, you’ll see, I’ll lead the triumphant return! Don’t rush, though, take your time, buh-bye~eeee!”
This conversation with a trinket finishes, and then Orloss claps its cover back. A sinister snarl, and a hint of panic, whitens his yellowish ugly face for a moment before he smooths back his greasy hair.
“Kyros, a name known to this lady.” At Neesiette’s assertion, Orloss nearly drops his contraption. “Personage of such name once witnessed last at the epicenter of the opening extra-dimensional tear instigated by a lady’s precise efforts, be this the sa—?”
“OF COURSE IT’S THE SAME GUY, YOU EVER-PROVOKING LITTLE TEASE, I’m gonna comb your hair until you…!”
But instead they shake with the death throes of the manse resuming.
Or are they the stirrings of awakening?
With the words shared and sight of a nightmare witnessed, all dutifully wait at the table to hear answers from the one who sneers lazily at the circumstances before him.
(My duty is to know all the answers, and provide them when they will prevail.)
“… And, so, this is all your fault?”
“Fault lies solely with the guilty.”
Orloss’ question earns Adris’ second words. Menacingly spoken, he then laughs.
“How profitable, that all here are equally complicit.”
Orloss frowns at this, but then notices that only he is willing to confront Adris. Two others do share glances with him, but appear more focused on self-preservation as they keep arms close.
(Which means you’ll try to threaten me…)
“… Two Pillars and a high Number versus one… ‘darkling’ are odds I like!”
A tentacle prods Sapphira on the back, lurching her out of her shock.
“He’s the one who assaulted Falke, my dear Sapphy! Ruined everything for us all…!”
(What a scumfuck. But, it’s the correct decision.)
“This kind will steal a man from you just to see you cry, my dear!”
“Shut up, Squidly…!”
But the goading works perfectly, for the matron takes up Orloss’ back with wings spread out to gather moisture. Lightning clings to the bizarre mystic, discharging into the waters she draws forth.
“Sweep this trash from my roost and help me rouse Falke, before…!”
“Certainly, before Peak gets here! We’ll put you in charge of Falke again, won’t that be grand~? Hehehehe…!”
(Everyone’s thinking about Falke now, are they? Good, very good.)
Reaching the point where Adris sought to deceive them to, he can feel the manse’s energies swelling. The anger and obsession of harpy and kraken are enticements that pseudoprósōpon would never not bubble and churn in the presence of.
Beneath their feet, it gathers to suck at the darkness in their hearts releasing!
(Listen to me and I’ll feed you “real” until you burst!)
Extending his Inner Expanse even a little bit beyond his body causes Adris’ right arm to completely numb and his legs to shake. The pain is extreme to the point of reddening his sight, but only “equal forces” can speak to each other!
“SHIT!?” Lycia perks up, feeling the growing tumult, and throws herself from the table like a cat struck by water!
(Good, I don’t want to see your weirdness again!)
“Betray your own desires!”
Adris lifts and slams the black cross into the throne’s arm, forcing its ringing to echo through the mass that makes up the accursed building.
“DARKNESS, TAKE YOU ALL!”
The gray and discolored sludge obeys in an instant, consuming the current of the unknown that he gifts it and lunging for more!
“What!?”
“It…!?”
The tidal wave of muck clings to their legs, trapping them, then sucks away at the gathering gloom. What collects ejects behind the foes while also binding them with streams of living night. The gardens divide with a massive fault line bisecting cleanly.
(What does Falke Kestner mean to you two!?)
Each half chaotically swirls, distant and departed scenes shaped by memories etched into two hearts reforming now.
Harpy and Kraken, their formative impressions of a Falcon consume the mutated manse to create the past.
(What is your relationship to Fehr’s salvation!?)
As Sapphira can only helplessly watch, mouth dropped in astonishment and sight watering at the figures which spring to life within a cozy bedroom with two chairs to rise into view of the audience…
[“This was when I understood what mother meant about only being able to give your heart away once.”]
“… Who is spreading lies about me!?”
Two voices, both Sapphira, contest: one is dreamy, while the other is shrill with embarrassment.
They speak of the youthful harpy that slowly intrudes on a girl and a boy playing a duet.
Sweating furiously, the boy who strums a violin without a care for its preservation cannot take his eyes from his “opponent”. Every drop of concentration and energy is placed into defeating the flutist. The intensity that these rough, but composed, soul-vibrating notes inflict announces to all the naked inferiority felt by the musician.
His movements are equally violent, legs stomping and disheveling his soft shorts and silken jacket.
By the end, even the cap he wears is thrown free. Beautiful silverish hair glitters in their candlelight.
[“What a handsome… spirited boy she has as a servant… passionate and alive.”]
The witnesses’ thoughts sound, but then attention goes to the true virtuoso playing. While the violinist is passionate, the flutist cares little for flamboyance. Stock stiff, this young lady with closed eyes is the very definition of fluffy. Her thick dress, overly comforting and ensnaring, hinders not the lungs.
Though harder of cheeks than the boy, both share the same outstanding beauty. “Confidence” is the name of the lady’s quality.
Purely delicious enjoyment crisply assails the soul. Only fingers move to new holes to produce notes that save the duet, for the lady is statuesque still. Wherever the passion of the boy steers them into potential discord, the lady rescues him with kinder sweet notes on the wind.
[“The lady I’m to serve forever is… so kind, I might cry now…!”]
Reed and string, they are united while opposing.
Until the violinist simply slaps his bow against the strings in disgust, producing a racket when he draws away.
“… Oh, but it was your best performance yet?”
“My best…? How annoying.”
When it ends, the lady places her flute upon her lap and pats her lips with a cloth, then cleans the mouthpiece.
“How ungrateful you are! You’ve only been practicing for a year and already you would fit among the prince’s own strings group? Aren’t you developing quite superbly after I went so far as to provide you someone to match wits against, haha!? Think of how joyful the Will shall be when you serenade it with your beautiful, fierce intent!”
Whatever praise intended lands hard, for the boy nearly throws away his violin.
“… And how long have you been playing the flute?”
“Hmm? I believe it’s been for two months since I took this up novelty?”
(Two months!? Are you a fucking prodigy!?)
All witnessing must feel the same as the memories, for the peacockish boy scratches the arms of his chair.
“But, let’s set aside your playing and address the one without proper manners…” Toward their voyeur, the lady lifts her flute to point like a whipping rod. “Having not been introduced by myself, one should’ve departed or introduced oneself at the conclusion of the duet, not observed private discussion without permission.”
“My apologies!”
The young harpy marches forward, placing herself for inspection of both the lady that lifts a fan to obscure her mouth and the boy who gawks openly at the pretty harpy wearing loose sashes.
“By the Will, always in service to its Speaker, allow this servant to offer her life to her true master!”
Finishing her plea with a flirtatious bow of black wings, she then goes quiet so that the two children with…
[“Blue as the lake I grew up on…”]
Eyes that blaze independently of the candlelight can study her.
“Not very impressive from the old bastard as a gift…” The boy seems interested, but somewhat bored, too.
“Now, now, let’s not judge without seeing everything. You’ll make others fail to see how they can be improved.” The girl, however, steps forward and places a hand to the cap’s sash that obstructs viewing the harpy’s face.
[“You can’t, YOU CAN’T, IF YOU SEE ME, MOTHER SAID YOU’LL BE…!”]
“So… pretty…!”
The moment the cape is lifted up, the boy’s cheeks redden with a fever striking. He stumbles closer, staring in awe of what he succumbs to. This handsome boy can do naught but worship the maid that arrived for their lady.
“I want… to…”
Unlike a strong lad, his hands clutch the violin to his chest. An appearance of surrender is tinged by covetousness.
[“Too late… he fell for me, for the Page Harpy’s glamour, they should’ve told them ahead of our meeting!”]
And then, after inspecting the damage delivered to the servant, the harpy nervously turns toward her new master.
“My, she is pretty, isn’t she, Dohle? Oh!?”
Unlike the boy, in this memory, a fine young lady of immense potential carries a halo of radiance about her.
Her face is rapturous beauty of a kind that only the obedient heart can perceive and implicitly trust!
To answer this, the harpy stammers.
“I… pledge myself…”
[“PLEASE MARRY ME!”]
Even though she saw her face earlier, the harpy’s knees buckle so badly that she has to wrap wings around the noble lass to stay upright after the obstructing veil is pulled up.
“You’re rather uncoordinated, girl. Though, especially her eyes are cute, aren’t they, Dohle, they’re red as rubies!”
A boy’s hands clench hard, while a lady’s soft touches bring a harpy closer.
“… To you, I devote my very soul and being… I promise…”
“What are you saying…? Ah, but she needs a name, doesn’t she, as I heard they don’t ever have one. No servant can be without a name to assign right and wrong to.”
[“Yes, name me! Make me yours…!”]
“Hey, Dohle, how about… ‘Rubira’? It was your aunt’s name, after all? For eyes like these, fitting.”
Like she’s naming a dog, the charming heiress pats the bird’s head. This private conversation, the very definition of lewdness about the way the bird clings, prompts…
“… I promise to be yours, and only yours, forever! Please…!”
“SHUT UP! I DIDN’T SAY THATTTTTTTTTT!”
Past and present Sapphiras scream, but the old, passed up one shrivels into a haven made by her wings to hide from others that turn to stare at her.
“Ho, you were a real loose little girl, Sapphy. Explains why our hierarchy by Recompense never manifested quite correctly, since Falke always had…?” A newfound realization darkens the already ash-tongued Orloss’ mood, split between the stages and observing only due to paralysis.
(You chose another, Sapphira?)
“… Love me! Kiss me! Hold me…!”
A loud smack draws Adris back to this scene, even though another goes on at the same time across the divide.
The proper girl lies strewn on the floor by a boy’s jealous fist. Though no great damage is dealt, the boy lingers on the floor with a knowing smile of self-deprecation forming and a trail of whitish-red Vigor after seeping from her lips.
“Your name is Sapphira, got it?”
“YES!?”
A harpy named Sapphira collapses to her knees, held firmly by the chin and wing by a young boy burning with hate.
“And for you…”
“GHK!?”
The kick to the lady’s stomach brings a squeal from only a harpy!
“How… how can you…!?”
“From now on, you sleep some other place than my bedroom floor. You’re fired, Dummke.”
“Wait… Dummke…?”
“Don’t ever touch what’s mine, ever again, or I’ll hunt you.”
(Falke was the one she swore to…)
“No, wait!” That very crossdressing child Falke, who wears the frilly clothes of a girl, accepts the cap of the “boy” that discards it. “You’ll wear this trash now.” Then, a jacket follows to be cast over his head.
“Hmmm… and what should I do with your dresses since I won’t be forced to wear them, then, Dohle?”
“Burn them. I’ll have more made. Oh, and, another thing…”
Sapphira the harpy squeals another time when the “boy” named Dohle embraces her so harshly. Squeezing around her waist, Sapphira is now a “bosom chum” with the glow that Dohle sinisterly smiles with.
“She’s my maid now, and you belong to her, Dummke. If you ever misbehave and make her unhappy, I’ll feed you live ants to watch them sting you.”
“Of course, Dohle! Sounds fun.”
[“I screwed up from the start… I betrayed the one who was supposed to be my mistress!?”]
In awe and horror, a harpy can only allow the chaos of the scene around her to pass.
“If he ever does anything disgusting, you have my permission, so scratch his eyes out!”
“Yes… mistress.”
“Call me Dohle!”
Her new mistress, a “boyish girl” named Dohle, gives her a final, forced hug before departing in a rush.
“Make sure you’re at fencing practice at seven, Dohle~!”
“… I’ll be there, scum.”
A final snippet leaves the harpy shaking, furious and beclowned by a crossdresser…
“You…
You…!
You little…!”
“Falke is my name, Miss Sapphira. Pleased to be acquainted, I suppose… heh.”
That arrogant gaze he swings to her leaves her jumping back, acting as if every part of her just got measured.
[“Irredeemable! He’s… utterly contemptible!”]
Still in the process of removing his dress, a half-naked boy replaces it with his new hand-me-down jacket. How he stands is so contemptuous, but self-sustaining…
[“He’s… awful… and… so handsome…!”]
“Calling your mistress by her name is… unforgivable! Pretending to be her is worse!”
At this, the boy only brushes back his feathery hair. “I never pretended to be her, though?” His polite smile, so tight and goading, ruffles her up even more! “When you survive Dohle for a year, you will be permitted to judge my efforts, senior. Now, I have other duties to attend to…”
And so he grabs up the papers surrounding him, a suspicious circle with tubes drawn on the top one.
“I can do anything… you can do, and better! I’ll show you!”
“Doubtful, senior, but I would love to be proved that Dohle has a helpful servant other than just myself, haha!”
[“You have to be mine! I will make you mine!”]
“Confiscated! These are confiscated!”
“Oh!? Troubling, I need those…”
The pages are stolen by snaring tides she conjures, without ruining them but leaving them up for him to witness. Never so easily controlled before now, the clumsy hydromancer whips waves around with crisp bravado.
“You’ll explain all suspicious things to me from now on! I will be checking everything you intend to do before you do it!”
“And I suppose I’ll be teaching you what my explanations mean, too?”
[“I’ll learn everything about you, and then…!”]
“Of course! I will learn everything you have…!”
The stage crumbles, the room with chairs sinking further into the depths of the manse’s awakening.
Only the outspoken, bragging maid harpy is left when the Falke child melts.
All witness the deepest secret that a spinster can keep.
“… and be better than that example, for my mistress’ sake!”
[“So that I can request you from her, when I prove I’m the best…!”]
That harpy, now older and wiser and crueler with time, hides beneath a table to avoid the gazes of a ghoul and a Lunamaton.
(Sapphira learned how Falke’s earliest works were made. That’s why she knew so much about Falke’s units’ limits. That’s why she’s a key, because she can reconstruct Fehr’s core.)
Her sordid past is bittersweet and full of youthful indiscretion, but at the same time that showcased opposite has brought yelps too from the matron.
[“The sort of doom you brought to your human enemies was glorious, but instead you kneel before a monster?”]
For the fiend Orloss’ memories are cold, black and white. Only what catches his attention takes form beyond that born of slithering multitudes to become more than one of a hundred silhouettes wearing a glowing collar or a mere puppet humanoid.
What the stage has shown thus far is the methodical demise of a princedom before this scene.
The collapse of a city beneath the mountain plunges stone upon the still standing redoubts. With the legions of invaders crawling the streets and palace halls, only the very top lay unconquered until reaching here.
Even the vaunted giants of steel and stone are cracked open, deconstructed by violence and strewn between the open halls.
“I offer myself, willingly…”
But the bastion that should’ve held the longest, collapses the fastest.
For the assembled Numbers and Pillars that accompany a hidden personage, the brother they came to meet languishes on his hands and knees. Little of a man is reflected in the form that Orloss perceives. Only pieces connected by the whole, beneath notice.
[“Worthless! He made all my work worthless by being worthless!”]
Falke, most outstanding servant of the Kestners, prostrates toward another.
Bereft of his jacket and bleeding from both legs where slashed, still, surrender is the most unexpected outcome by Adris’ thoughts.
(He was conquered…?)
“Don’t beg, Falke…!” Another howling Sapphira, appearing only as a mannequin that struggles against tentacles, tries to crawl toward this Falke. “Run! Run, get away! Don’t let anyone else own you! Escape, you have to…”
“Nobody is escaping, my dearly feathered prize!”
“Ughhh!? HYAAA!”
When the soldiers of the deep tighten, wonderful screams prompt the fool who kneels to scratch the stone rooftop. Above and overhanging their palace, the Kestners meet the end…
“It is noble to sacrifice for love, giving yourself for the salvation of others is worthy.”
But Adris’ thoughts are vanquished by the proper sounds of home.
The dead voice that announces a just principle does so with the most ancient dialect of the Imperial Court.
(Fuck! It is you!)
No form registers, only an absence of presence.
Where a man would stand the pseudoprósōpon rejects the memory. It purposefully swirls idly out of reach.
Yet, the taste of hidden “aura” can be detected within this ancient memory.
(I was right! But, I don’t want to be!)
[“Love is worthless. Power, that assures the right conclusion.”]
What is asserted receives no backtalk from the Orloss who menaces Falke, however. Only a hate-filled, yet tired, narration gives up the relevant information of what a squid-demon thinks.
“But, love can’t save without a burning soul that blazes until all others yield.” There’s still no worth of emotional investment, even when this foreigner shouts. “And a burning soul is what answers the transcendent questions, such as:
‘Who are you’?”
(Cethran’s damn question!?)
That question excites the mass that gives life to this memory, sends the topmost layers trying to flee up the walls! The scene degrades into chaos momentarily, but then the Orloss made of gray calms it with his narration to draw back the escaping fluids.
[“Oh, no, he’s going to do something detestable, again…”]
Falke lifts his head, eying the man whose deep, but passionless, monologue peaks.
“So, I offer you a truth: if you do not come at me with all of your strength with the intent to kill, I will rape her and all her children to prove this scene true.”
Both Sapphiras flinch at the same time, the one lingering almost under the table turning away to hide from the past.
“Y-You…!” A defeated falcon hisses, puffing his face up with rage. But, the promise continues.
“Every day, I will rape them until they make fresh children. Then, their children, and their children’s children will enjoy the same. I’ll hand them out as gifts, so that every man on this continent shall know the texture of your beloved’s cunt by tasting her lineage.”
[“This is why he can never have ‘friends’, only…”]
“… If that’s what it takes to discover ‘your place below the stars I’ll claim’, then I shall commit to it with exuberance.”
Even the dream-past Orloss must place a hand to his temple to then sigh. Sapphira no longer struggles, gaining the shape of a true woman when the kraken-mad mystic eyes her.
“True, it might be worth it to do that Master-Brother Peak. She is pretty good [water] material.”
“I’m glad you agree, Squidly! At least one seeing the bigger picture should motivate others.”
From the ground rise sentinels of shining gray to find that motivation!
A pikewall projects toward the passionless tyrant, and is followed by the columns of this overhang itself looming down to strike as building-sized hammers.
Falke rips off his tie, letting the still wind claim it as he forms a rapier from his gauntlet to charge with his assembled pawns!
“Die, pig.”
[“Ooooh, now that’s a good feeling!”]
A pavilion once empty of allies now teems with hundreds of heartless murderers dressed in servants’ finery, either aiming rifles or descending in waves upon a single man.
“Firearms…? I see, I see, you love guns, too!”
The strongest honor guard of pure malice, no doubt his finest works, crowds Falke to press an iron fist of bodies straight at this low-spoken foreigner.
“Pity the Southerners, for Techniques denied all but auraic bullets from harming we who challenged the black skies.”
A following
SNAP!
banishes all expectations!
(GAAAAAAAH!?!?)
The pseudoprósōpon that Adris animated bursts upward by the tons.
With a single sound, the veiled sky turns ash gray!
Even Adris’ body is cracked by the impact. The black cross thrusts itself against the wave of aura!
As it rejects, it rings without ending, fiercely but also growing more muted!
“SHITSHITSHIT! ADRIS, WHAT IS THAT…!?” Lycia cowers upon the cavitating garden floor, clutching her head. Vigor of her special blue-red color leaks from her eyes and ears as she thrashes.
(You wouldn’t even hear me even if I told you…!?)
This fragment of the past annihilates the drooping table and liquefies Adris’ throne in the same emission. Neesiette reaches out from the muck trapping them in defiance of it, fully functional but unable to pull Adris free of it!
Even her spoken words cannot be comprehended.
(I’m affected, too!? I’m… paralyzed!?)
Aside from Orloss, Sapphira, and Falke’s doppelgangers and…
[“He survived… mostly intact!?”]
These mimicking actors remain upon the ruined stage, though Sapphira’s doesn’t even twitch. Falke’s shredded figure boasts only a gauntleted arm remaining apart from a torso, for the rest smolders in rising smoke that would glow with a rainbow sheen if this were truly that battle. His hand is frozen while stretched forth to direct what remains of his honor guard, only parts and bits, into the path of danger to be obliterated instead.
[“OH DELIRIOUS DAY, HE SURVIVED BECAUSE OF WHAT HE CREATED SHIELDING HIM!?”]
(He endured a true Technique of the Peak Beyond the Peak, an aura master from Xin!?)
No longer mostly a detail-lacking mannequin, this Falke’s pain and humiliation are perfectly clear because Orloss now grades him as worthy.
[“OH, HOW… VERRRRRRRRY!?”]
Orloss himself leans forward to bask in the outcome, drooling before another…
“But, I still loved their ingenuity, even when we’d beat them back to their decrepit islands again and again. I could take no pleasure in their suffering, for…?”
SNAP!
In the wake of this emission, the entire garden reverts to its proper stage performances as summoned forth by Adris.
A table no longer droops, however. Nor does a throne degrade.
Instead, all partaking find themselves seated upon a chair, spectating as they were before without even a single inconsequential thing out of place.
An unleashed truth coaxes into being what Adris had wanted all along…
(Even… just a memory of Peak Zenith can unleash such power!?)
“It doesn’t matter why.
He’ll do quite nicely, Squidly.”
Though the tyrant sounds not pleased at all while clapping. Only intently devoid of emotional attachment.
“Ahahaha, I knew you’d be pleased, Master-Brother!” For his part, Orloss immediately squiggles closer to the unseen Peak with Sapphira in tow. “I’d given so much time to scouting him, but it’s all sweet in the cream when you finally taste, yes!?”
“Just so, just so! [Dolly] will be a perfect new true companion.”
“… Right… Dolly? A friend, one to build up a nice solution for you on cementing our breach!”
“You want to paint the canvas with me, Squidly? Then, how about you see to his blossoming talents?”
And so a collar is proffered from sheer nothing to hazily construct into view.
Bearing a number upon its tag.
(That’s the face of someone who sees a trap…)
Though Adris’ comrades in this remain quietly blinking, no doubt pondering if they’re truly awake or dreaming this experience, Adris focuses upon the doppelganger Orloss’ expression.
Smiling, carefree, and utterly loyal, there is a hint of absolute fear clinging to his twitching brow.
“… Surely, Master-Brother! I’ll whip him into shape, teach him the pride of the Pillars!”
“Then, I’ll gift the harpy and her flock of friends to you, too. Let’s be the heroes and claim the treasures of this evil princedom, then return to the Castillo.”
And without another care given, Peak Zenith abandons his newest catch…
“Oho, you’ll be excellent material for some better deep ones!”
“Curse you…!”
Squiggling soldiers, brainless and utterly devoted, hoist the Page Harpy queen up.
“Why you never extended your flock, we’ll fix that, too! Plenty of places to conquer, lots of lads to be bred to, huhuhu!”
The Falke upon the floor, all of his creations laying lifeless around him by the hundreds, finally rises to his hands when Orloss approaches with a collar.
“If you harm her… I’ll end you, too…”
[“What a buffoon! You get tore up by that Peak, then think you can be my equal? No, no!”]
Around the neck goes the collar, to clamp with a brilliant sheen of light blinding them both momentarily.
“I’d like to see you try, earthworm~! Nyahahahaha!”
“Count your days, salt psycho!”
Their first meeting begins with high-energy mutual despise.
The defeated raises a gauntlet that bubbles with energy, while the peddler-looking tramp sparks with a current flowing through him looking to ground…
“I, too, would like to see new brothers discover the form of the other’s soul!”
That tyrant returns hastily, belting out an order!
“Alright, Squidly, Dolly! Let’s see you throw down. Get those knuckles raw!”
“Nyeeeeeh!?”
“What?”
[“AAAAAAHHHHH!? WHY DID I SPEAK!?”]
“Hah… certainly, Master Brother Peak.” Into the many arms of his squirming soldiers the harpy is thrust, so that Orloss can wind his arms around to limber up.
“I won’t fight for your pleasure, heathen! All I care about is Sapphira!” But Falke’s automatons aid him in standing only so that he can refuse with a roar.
“That being the case, then how about another truth?”
At the provocation, the swirling pseudoprósōpon grows more cowardly!
“If Dolly loses, Squidly will get this devoted woman to breed with horrors until she’s left barren.
If Squidly loses, Dolly will exchange numbers with him and become the senior brother.”
That a man can say this so carefree makes even Adris’ neck tickle on the back.
“How about those odds?”
[“I HATE THEM! Ah, whatever, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine…~!”]
Orloss’ height grows four feet as the inoffensive peddler rises on stretching tentacles. His lower body hidden beneath the coat is truly bizarre, granting him immense agility as he circles the dollmaker that eyes him with trepidation.
“Bahahaha! You’re gonna get to watch some VERY INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS FIRSTHAND after I teach you manners, my DEAAAAAAREST FALKE KESTNER!”
“You’re going to experience one yourself, senior, when I discover the exact force required to rip each of your eight legs off.”
Falke’s legion rises as soulless puppets at the same time, hoisting their weapons to face unspeakable, dripping, toothed horrors that close in from all around. A butler’s surrender fades from memory.
[“Well, let’s bust this nerd up and get him to making me some killer do—!”]
A stage set for a climactic confrontation descends into mush, for the showdown reforms ahead of the main fight.
(Huh? The scene is flying ahead of the fight…?)
By the end, everything is settled as a war-loving idiot from Xin would desire.
“SAW-TOOTH IDIOT!”
“DEFECT BRICKHEAD!”
With their legions of horrors and automatons butchered, then piled high to make a raised ring for them, the ripped-up contestants that began as gentleman resort to…
“SEAL RAPER!”
“DOLL FUCKER!”
The noisy slaps and the impressions of rubber being pounded progress to one man’s sharp teeth grinding on a protective gauntlet. A squid is yanked around in a vain attempt throw him off.
“BLUBBER-BRAIN!”
“NGEAF-EARVD HAVH-BRTD!”
Raining fists and tentacles and feet to slam against the other, the two contestants without a single weapon left to their name are left rolling around like children. Neither can budge the other’s sheer obstinacy, only inflict more and more petty wounds.
“Alright, time’s up. You lose, Squidly.”
“GACK!? NOOO…!”
Taking one last strike to his nose delivered by pure adrenaline, Orloss thrusts off his attacker. Both heavily pant, but it’s only Falke that tries to climb through the corpses to continue.
“Haaah… yes, Master-Brother Peak, I lost.”
“Good. Accepting the truth is key to altering its future!”
[“WHO WOULD GUESS THIS SURRENDERING STOOGE BIRD WOULD REFUSE TO JUST STAY DOWN!?”]
From overhead, Falke spits out a glob of Vigor at the missing man below before uttering a demand. “… Gif… Give me… Sapphira…! I won!”
“Won? You lost, too.”
“WHAT!?”
A heartless chuckle spreads through the garden, before the stage begins to darken. The energies Adris gifted fade away finally.
“Squidly is still up, and so you both lose.”
“What does that mean!?”
“Are you not as smart as Squidly boasted you were?”
With a snap, much lighter than the others in how it hurts Adris’ soul, new numbers change Falke’s and Orloss’ collars’ positions under the infinitely tall mountain top.
“It means both outcomes are true.”
“Ah!? That… that is…”
“Welcome to the Pillars, ‘true friends for life’, my new Dolly. See to it that Squidly, your junior, explains how friends work together for glorious deeds.”
The scene shrinks only to this: two men, both defeated, brought low by each other upon a hill of pure carnage.
“Haaah… that’s Master-Brother Peak. Get used to it, the sun will not rise before he changes.”
And so Orloss rolls onto his back, staring upward.
[“Nobody goes toe-to-toe with me and isn’t statued, but he managed to almost keep up…”]
“I’ll… I’ll…!”
“You’ll what? Get snapped into oblivion again? Bahahaha!”
Goading him, laughing at his face, Orloss’ square-pupiled eyes glitter with fascination at the dollmaker who turns away with shame.
“There was never a need to have more power before…! I could always protect her… legacy…!”
[“DO NOT WORRY, MY DEAREST… ‘FRIEND’. WE’LL RE-FOCUS THAT AGGRESSION MOST BEAUTIFULLY.”]
The puppet Orloss strokes not one of his own soldiers, but the remains of one of Falke’s honor guard that flew a spiked banner of a jackdaw before lightning singed it to ashes.
“I’ll admit, I’m curious about your creations? So, how about we leave off on nasty things…”
“FALKE!”
With her release, Sapphira swoops in to cradle the dollmaker who bleeds profusely.
“And… let’s talk about our futures, shall we…?”
“ENOUGH!!!”
The true Orloss sheds a gloomy, cold aura after finally pulling free of the pseudoprósōpon trapping him.
(It ran out at the end!)
Everything crumbles into dust when meeting this emission save for his duplicate, who spares a parting narration that the true self that spawned it tries to hide by furiously mangling it with a tentacled cane!
[“IF YOUR CREATIONS COULD SURVIVE EXPOSURE TO PEAK IDIOT’S RAINBOW AT SUCH A NAIVE STAGE OF THEIR EVOLUTION…?”]
The body is savaged and dragged, but the truth of the heart echoes out just enough for Adris…
[“THEN, LATER…?”]
Whispers laugh at the mystic that twists his own cane as this narration prematurely dies, prompting it to scream in pain at the mistreatment.
(That was your secret, Orloss?)
Realizing what’s to come, Adris pulls free Cethran’s cloth to wind it around his arm.
“Rebellion against one’s own master be the truest illumination of a fiend’s foremost guiding principles. Against Peak Zenith, a long-term plan spanning decades rests solely upon Falke’s utility.”
It’s not particularly a grand logical leap, but the stiff way that Neesiette announces it sends Orloss bending backward so far that his head almost touches the ground.
“Noteworthy information, this be: damning.”
“YOU JUST CAN’T HELP YOURSELF, CAN YOU!?”
Shedding all inoffensiveness, the Kraken-Claimer, self-named, licks his chapped lips on the way back up and then squiggles toward them with an unhinged intensity radiating.
“Very well, time to resolve these troubles the Orloss way…~”
Orloss’ territory, so alike an Inner Expanse, sweeps over Adris when expanded.
(Potent!)
The monstrous eye above pierces through, its horrid flesh following through the tear to shatter completely the remaining straight lines of architecture. Unending tendrils of momentous danger creep to fill the garden and distort view.
“… so that others can never share inconvenient truths about certain domestic matters, feel free not to come quietly, devil boy!”
“Orloss!?”
“RUN, ADRIS!”
Sapphira’s screech daunts the maniac not a bit, nor does Lycia seek to do more than pull free her rod with a macehead attached to the end when she’s cordoned off by a curtain of descending appendages.
(Orloss most of all will agree, now. Fehr is the weapon he was seeking against Peak Zenith!)
With that known, Adris’ victory is assured.
(And I can finally tell this annoying night and tale to fuck off!)
“‘Escaping’, when, name the time, an option of this nature found one presented in terms?”
At her self-cue, appraising the situation perfectly, Neesiette asks this potent question with just the right interest and utter passivity otherwise.
“YOU, MOST OF ALL, I’m GONNAaaaaaAAARGHABLE!?”
Orloss’ tentacle rod lunges out, but halts when Adris uses his deepest, most-charming voice and jerks the tentacles into his clutches. Coruscating lightning sparks harmlessly off of Cethran’s gift, only revealing his flashing white teeth for a moment!
“Nobody has been punished, yet, so dawn can never come…”
So, Adris yanks the mystic closer!
“… even if this vessel and all it sees before it should be shattered.
There’s a hunger to be born loose in this manse’s foundations, so, how about I aid that starving innocent in devouring the guilty that denied her?”
(Welcome to the nightmare, you three!)
Characters:
Name: Adris fehl Dain, “Boss”, “Starr”
Titles: Lycia’s Little Brother, Slayer, Gigolo (Self-Admitted)
Race: Xin’El, Emperor’s Child (Human), ???
Sex: Male
Age: ?? – Young
Occupation: Crossbearer; “Star of Ruin, Cast Down from the Sky Upon a Dying World”, Slayer of Petripolis, [True False God]
Discipline: [Rule in Dark]
Powers:
[Tool Savant] – “Adris is a tool-collecting-and-utilizing fanatic. Most men would consider him disgusting for loving tools more than his own partner. Has so many tools that it can be said to be his true power. What does he do when he has no tools left? He seeks to acquire more, obviously!”
[Rule in Dark – Wave of Darkness] – “Making victory possible? No, no, no. That thing isn’t that kind! There’s more than that!”
[Brainfry] – “You’re still with me, right buddy? Yeah, you’re still there.”
[Refuse to Kneel] – “Ah, even the Alchemaster can’t make me submit! This is the one that’s saved me all those times!?”
[Tongue of Air and Darkness] – “What’s the difference between this and the old one? Why ‘air’?”
[Conceptual Refusal] – “How the fuck does dominating people’s minds turn into a weird statement like this!?”
[Marital Arts – Self-taught] – “Hoh, even if it’s dangerous to use, it feels good to prove to myself that the body is still as willing as the mind! Even if I can’t call it aura, something is inside me now!”
[Verisimilitude] – “Stop giving weird names to what I do! But if my imaginative truths are more believable now, I’m not gonna complain.”
[A WONDERFUL CURSE] – “If that old corpse wasn’t already dead, I’d definitely kill him!”
[Authentic Fiction] – “All tales eventually gain sufficient truth if retold often enough, right? Why shouldn’t my fiction be better than ‘reality’?”
Items:
[Lord of Predation] – “BECOME NOTHING MORE THAN FOOD OR PLEASURE FOR ME!”
[The Mountain King] – “[Honor the gods, inheritor, and ever seek victory for their sake.]”
[Amethyst Oracle] “A present from this stuck up hoarder!? Am I gonna die if I use it!?”
Disposition: Resilient / Adaptable / Sinner
Alignment: Chaotic
Eyes: Black
Hair: Black, with strands of White
Skin: Tanned
Statistics:
Rantil Value – “Even after all of that, Master is still an idiot!”
Attributes by Grade:
Strength – E
Vitality – E
Dexterity – D
Agility – C
Intelligence – D
Mentality – C
Luck – F
Charisma – D
“If you want more, stop being mean to Rantil!”
Beauty:
Cethran Value – “Much the same as before, but isn’t the way you look at others a bit more dashing, now? Forced to open yourself to the world, perhaps the gentleman may grow? That is likely impossible, isn’t it, Adris?”
“Yes, gendarmes, I think he’s over here?”
“If you won’t be arrested by the allip, then I guess that means you see her as a true woman now?”
“Valuing another so highly? What sort of wealth do you seek to extract from her? It is gain you seek, right, Adris…?”
“Duality is the key, isn’t it? Have you noticed something untoward about contradictions?”
Description:
“A boy who is a bit out of place as far as features, he descended from the top of the Castillo to the bottom by pluck, luck, and outrageous lying. Reborn into the world of Zennia, what can be said other than ‘he’s still exactly the same, but different’?”
“Claiming what should not be claimed is the definition of asking for trouble.”
“Obtains another thing to be afraid of.”
“Death unclogs rage.”
“Understanding breeds a solution.”
Commentary:
“Back to basics: deceive until you make it.”
Name: Neesiette vera Luna
Titles: “Moon”
Race: Lunamata
Sex: Female
Age: ???
Occupation: Delver, Mystic
Discipline: ???
Powers:
[Rod of Force] – “In what way would it be changed? As designed, so shall it function, correct?”
[Rod of Respelling] – “A lady be every ready to instruct regarding what be in error.”
[“Brings An End” – Ponderous] – “[Ponderous was the end, for the unfair passage of time finally brought even earth to its conclusion]…”
Disposition: Impassive / Calculating / Curious
Alignment: Ordered
Eyes: Pale Violet
Hair: Amber
Skin: Pale White
Statistics:
Rantil Value –
Strength – F
Vitality – F
Dexterity – D
Agility – E
Intelligence – B
Mentality – C
Luck – F
Charisma – C
???
Beauty:
Cethran Value –”First imps, and now short girls? This is certainly becoming a pattern, isn’t it? Though you might not fare badly with a girl as beautiful as this, yes? Though she’s a little perfect, doesn’t she seem oddly demure?”
“Yet of them all, shouldn’t it be said that she’s the only one that has no preattachments to you? So, in truth, isn’t her love potentially more revealing if obtained?”
“Why so afraid of what you’ve claimed, Adris? Didn’t you want to laugh about stealing another’s toy?”
“How easily what we love is shattered, isn’t it, Adris? Even when it claims to be eternal, yes?”
“Do you want her to be your mother now?”
Description:
“An otherworldly existence, she wears clothing that doesn’t fit with the Castillo. With mannerisms quite distinct from all others, even the girls she travels with seem incomparable to her uniqueness. Yet, she definitely seems to be in charge…?”
“But when changed… becomes yours in a way you cannot predict.”
“A humble and energetic (in mentality) lady.”
“An immortal lady who can reconstruct herself with the glorious power of the stars.”
“What she sees in others, she finds that she can no longer easily explain.”
Commentary:
“Now she’s the adult?”