There is no gaping hole in your crotch, only the inanimate object of null desires.
I have desires, things that would stun the mind!
Stunning delusions, throbbing with cringe.
...I am a derelict.
Criiinge.
...I am adrift.
Criiiiiinge.
...I hunger.
Criiiiiiiiinge.
...I.
Beneath the tortured lunds is an underworld. A vast, cavernous world under the surface. A dark place filled with excessive amounts of water, epic columns and both species of dripstones when those don't connect.
The Nethers.
This underdarkground world is host to many freshwater lakes. More than I can count on my fingers and then some. Like I said, excessive amounts of the wet. Life flourishes down here, in strange ways. Fungi, aquatic animals. Even some plants, in smaller numbers. Now, how the fuck is that possible without the hateful sunlight?
That is a question one man asks himself. A ragnalonian man of kazanjin descent lies adrift on a defunct boat, a strider transmuted into a water-faring version. Wheels were replaced by a smooth hull fit for that task.
The wonders of technomantic metaphysics.
I believe you were asking yourself how plants thrive in the gloom.
I believe you believe that.
This sassy lump is called Krow. He is still wondering how plants grow in the ruthless penumbra of the Nethers. He answers his own question by looking up, seeing little pinpricks of stolen sunlight far above. They are many, so many that a group of them is called a "Galaxy". Sun worms attach to the distant ceiling, the blackness faintly illuminated by their distant radiance, a radiance that doesn't even belong to them. That's why I said "stolen" sunlight. It's pretty much literal.+
What little light they give is enough to sustain some limited plant life, and this holds Krow's attention for some time. What else can he do? There is nothing to occupy his mind while he waits for the Whiplash to respawn.
Days of nothing, just to be a good boy?
Maybe I need to kill myself, return to Ragnalon.
Do that, and some sadness will be fated. Do you really want to kick and scream out of that place again?
There is a have-to brewing in the tubes of my heart.
The waiting is on the fast track of becoming more unbearable.
Not yet, but soon?
Not yet, but soon.
Krow's real right eye twitches behind a black eye-patch lens. The scorched remnant of his left eye socket twitches harder, causing pain. The brass ball sitting in that very socket no longer fits snug. He adjusts it with his left hand, the fingers looking like the talons of a corvid bird. The entire left arm is mostly normal and human, if you ignore the blackness of the skin, as well as raven feathers running up the length of it. It's normal, perfectly suited to brass ball adjustment.
There, fixed.
Stay snug in that slut, silly ball.
Krow's brazen eye does what it's told. It's obedient...for now. Now its his raspirator's turn to rebel. The feeding tubes inside his mouth lie awkwardly, one of them trying to stab his tongue. With a groan of frustration, Krow opens the tulva on his boat's command dash, and checks the local zaturation levels. The thrumball starts spinning, like the rotation of an aerial satellite sphere, tendrils of golden electricity turning it white. It's so vibrant in the gloom, even with the glass patch over his one good eye, Krow squints at the contrast.
Woah...I just realized I don't give a shit.
Without waiting for the results of the scan, Krow rips his raspirator off to reveal his scowling, stubbled mouth. He glares at the oni-style raspirator, the toothy ogrish grin mocking him. Laughter creeps into his mind, a sardonic cacophony catching up from the past. In the back of his head he can almost smell the burning maples, the screaming children...the "honorable" men coming to kill the devil.
"Very clever." Krow admits, returning the raspirator's grin. He adjusts the feeding tubes, and plants it back on his mouth. The act of securing the straps is more fiddly than he intended, his long hair getting in the way. He has to adjust his half-updo slightly. Spending so long adjusting himself, he doesn't notice many of the sunworms above flickering...angrily. He keeps not noticing when it's time for survivalist considerations.
Krow is adrift on the Undyne. It is a lake, though that word is not nearly powerful enough. This body of water is an absolute unit of litres. Of gallons!
Picture all oceans combined in a place called "Earth". I'm sure you've heard of it, something tells me you're in on it.
Got all oceans pictured, combined in your brain? Good.
That's roughly how big the Undyne is, and it's double the depth.
Yet, its name means "Little Wave" so one has to wonder how much bigger the oceans above used to be. Then again, there is evidence that this massive lake used to be much, much, muuuuch smaller. Ruins of ancient civilizations that were definitely NOT underwater societies are found beneath the waves of the Undyne all the time.
So keep that in mind as Krow starts building a fishing pole out of scraps. Using a bit of magic, he makes the impossible plausible. It's a jury rigged piece of shit, a junker would do a much better job. Krow pictures a certain bald dworf making some kind of technomantic masterpiece out of the same scraps, and scoffs into his raspirator.
"Mine has more spirit..." he trails off when he realizes that he has nothing for bait. He feels his gut twisting with hunger; he feels helpless.
Hah!
Fool!
Guess you'll have to starve all the way back to Ragnalon, haha!
Krow pulls a mirror out of...somewhere and glares into it. Instead of his own reflection, he sees an Oni, mythical inspiration behind the raspirator's design. Toothy grin, yellow (almost brazen) eyes and red skin. It cackles, it mocks. It points, eyes locked on Krow. There is nothing to use, no living thing to sacrifice for his own gain. Or so he thought. A fresh thought crawls into his brain, the electrochemistry giving birth to a fiendish idea. The Oni can tell that Krow is grinning from ear to ear. The grin disappears once Krow's left-hand talons start glowing, magentic power rising, black feathers shimmering. Before the imagined Oni can retreat into the wyrd proper, Krow's left arm shoots into the mirror. Instead of breaking, it reaches through, black talons latching on to red flesh.
Come out, bait!
The Oni flails, digging his nails into imagined ground. It has no chance against Krow, who starts pulling the Oni by the bulbous leg. It locks its nails in imagined ground, carving straight lines as its being dragged. The mirror finally shatters when the Krow gives his all into one final pull, ripping the crying Oni out of his hiding hole, leaving magentic shards in its wake.
The sudden extra weight almost capsizes the boat. Krow whips out his trusted spiked bat. The Oni is far more pained by the irony of being beaten with his signature weapon rather than being beaten at all. Once all four of his limbs are twisted and useless, Krow ties the fishing pole's string (or rather rope) to the Oni's neck and then rolls the mound of blubbery muscle into the Undyne. The red ogre sinks into the depths rather quickly, such is his immense...power. Eventually, the rope becomes taut, and Krow plays the waiting game.
Seconds become minutes.
Minutes become hours.
Hours become-
NEVERMIND, seconds are back in focus. Something bites the line, furiously tugging at it, trying to rip the Oni from the rope. Krow tries to keep the boat steady with his magics while pulling the line.
We have him! My bait paid off!
Your bait paid off.
The betrayal of one self, of the ogre within.
Will they ever forgive you?
They? Is it plural or agender?
They have a gender.
Which one?
All of them, everywhere at once.
(°ࡇ°)
The struggle continues for the next twenty-nine seconds, a furious stalemate that only ends when Krow taps into the resevoirs of wyrd power throbbing in his soul. Hunger is a powerful motivator, the main culprit in the case of reckless behaviour.
"Come to papa!" with one final, decisive pull, the fish flies out of the water, its jaws latched on to the Oni. It has long since passed away, and is in the process of disintegrating back into runic particles. Krow doesn't notice. A triumphant thrill shakes his entire body, all he can do to disperse the energy; Krow dances, the deck of the small interceptor boat becoming an impromptu dance floor. Oh my, he just did a flip or two.
"That's right! I shall not find myself in Ragnalon a starved wretch! Hear that, horned one? I am not..." Krow stops dead in his tracks. Words trail off into the depths. He locks eyes with the creature he captured, its many eyes blinking in confusion as it chews on nothing, nothing, and oh...more nothing. Nothing squared. Magenta ain't so nutritious. Facial tentacles feel around, groping for anything to chow. When they find nothing, it flails around like a newborn. There is a tantrum building up.
A mermook.
Stay calm.
A baby mermook?
Deep breaths.
An infant mermook?!
In...and out...in...and-
Fear pulsates up and down Krow's spine. His heart reaches a panicked rhythm. Fast and aggressive, it fits the BPM of a typical melody played on the soundtreks. Cold sweat runs down his forehead, off his chin and down his exposed chest. The vest he's wearing does little to stave off the chills. The mermook child opens a maw to let out a scream. A shrill shriek that echoes far. A few sunworms are dislodged from the distant ceiling, falling into the Undyne. Tiny splooshes.
"Yamero!" Well, would you look at that? Krow's pissing himself so thourougly, he's reverted to native speech. In desperation, he tries to silence the tentacle freak, placing his right hand over its mouth. His efforts are in vain, there is no silencing the little mermook...also, he can't find its mouth, the tentacles are confusing and in the way. It continues to shriek for a few seconds until...something rumbles in the far distance.
In the far, far distance, the water bulges up. Many golden eyes much like that of the mermook, emerge from the waters. They're attached to a large body, a slimy body. A greenish, eldritch body. This thing clambers its way up the submerged cliffs that lead down into the mega-depths of the Undyne, answering the call of its brood. It wades towards Krow's boat.
Krow moves like a man possessed. He uses telekinetic spells to chuck the mermook back into the Undyne. Seeing no other recourse, he leaps into the water on the opposite side and begins swimming. He swims, and he swims, and swims, swims, swi-
Oh.
Krow didn't make it far. He's been swimming furiously in the same position without moving a single metre for at least a few seconds. Two giant fingers hold him stationary by the left leg. He doesn't stop swimming, even when he's lifted up by one leg. Krow doesn't stop his swimming strokes until a strange glow radiates against his flesh. He carefully opens his one good eye, and is met by the many golden eyes of a fomoryor, all of them glaring at him. Without the black eye-patch lens, he'd be blinded. Krow puts on a smile, forgetting that his raspirator is still firmly attached. A good thing too, this thing is absolutely BRIMMING with zaturation. "Look, we got off the wrong foot..."
All glowing pupils on the fomoryor's face dart to the leg they have pinched in their fingers, then back at Krow. "You know what I mean, why don't we all just relax and-"
He sees something climb up the fomoryor's immense, slimy shoulders. It's the baby mermook. It clambers towards the giant's ears, and begins whispering something. The fomoryor nods several times. Krow can't hear what the mermook is saying, but he can guess the general gist by the giant's eye movements.
At first, focused, listening. "Mhm. Yes. Uh-uh."
Then growing wide in surprise. "He did what?!"
Then darting to Krow, angry. "Why, I oughta."
No, furious. Peeved. Quite possibly enraged. Definately fuming. How angry does an aquatic creature have to be for fumes to radiate from its immense, green forehead?
Very.
Is it eco-friendly to piss into the Undyne?
Go ahead, you'll need to be extra light for the flight.
The wha-
The giant flicks Krow several kilometers, launching him like a rocket, a stream of piss trailing behind him. A piss meteor, if you will. His direction? West.
This is important, for in that direction lies a city called-
Sedizima.
Yeah, what's it to you?
Wanna fight?
City of shattered dreams.
Like your berserk comrades would spittle, there is wrong here.
Surely there is at least a hotel for little old me?
There is nothing...but the pops.
Like, we're going to POP off and party, or what?
I know a recipe for some mean sake, think I could replicate it with dworf spirits, if only-
FOOL!
The pops do not bring joy...but they think they do.
They, as in, plural?
Or are we dealing with a gendered threat?
Many...many floating.
The spines aren't right, they aren't right.
Are they left?
We've washed up on the shore of destiny, where dreams shatter, spines are not right.
Anything else?
Dodge.
Wha-
DODGE!
Krow snaps back into the reel by the skin of his raspirator's teeth. Washed up on a sandy shore in the gloom, a spherical object floats in front of his wet face. It radiates something awful. The bubble is seconds away from landing gently on Krow's moist skin when the wyrlock teleports himself away a few meters. He rises to his feet, almost touching another bubble. Again and again, the fucking bubbles are everywhere, bobbing around like ambient threats in a tulva game.
Did Jabu Jabu swallow me, or what?
Krow stomps the sandy ground, disappointed that there is no fleshy squelch. "What am I to do with this bottle of fish?" he asks the ambience, taking out a glass bottle filled with one, stationary blue fish. Look at those amazing 64-bit graphics!
POP
"These old games are ICONS! I am laughing, crying with joy-"
One of the bubbles bursts on the bottle, sending supernatural pressure into Krow's soul. Out of some wyrd instinct he cannot explain, he drops the bottle and backflips away, avoiding bubbles with premonitiated agility.
The bottle shatters on the ground, much more violently than Krow expected. The fish sprinkles for a few seconds, here's comes a real strange thing; its spine bends into a u-shape. The piscine face scrunches up, eliciting an expression that can only be described as "Lethal embarrassment!" I'd also accept "cringe".
The present has a gift for Krow: Danger, formed of many bubbles suddenly launching his way with malicious compassion. Like an airborne feline, Krow twists and turns his body while dodging through the air. Impossible agility thanks to magical skill, but it won't last forever. One of the bubbles will pop on him at this rate, it is only a matter of time.
"Kuso!" Mid dodge, Krow has to suddenly change course to avoid a bubble touching his feathery shoulder, twisting his body nigh to the breaking point. Somersaults, backflips and many acrobatics feats later, Krow is cornered against a ledge, no way out...until his corvid talons touch the familiar structure of-
A ladder!
This will get them off our backs.
Quick twitch, with alacrity, Krow ascends the ladder. He plays a game called "Speed" and this round is his! Standing on the top of what used to be the edge of a harbor, Krow can ill afford to waste time. Like chrome, it is precious, though the sight before him distracts him enough for a close call.
Splayed out before him are the ruins of a massive city, built into a massive column that connects to the distant ceiling where sunworm galaxies slither with stolen radiance. Remembering his many conversations with a certain bald dworf, Krow can deduce by the architecture alone that these old arrangements of stone date back to the Thalassan Centuries.
Fancy way of saying "long-ass time".
Did they know death would come?
Or were they all children at heart, thinking an ageless life would stop the inevitable?
No one wants to die, ain't no wrong there.
Fixing two cons with one pro still leaves a singular con...
...more than enough to breed dozens more.
Krow's dwolms are snapped into silence by the aforementioned close call knocking. A bubble pops on an innocent mote of sharp dust right next to his head.
"Your sharpness is inspiring, your heroism a breath of fresh air against the oppressive dark of the world. Saving Hattori Karasuki from an untimely cringe-inducing death is as surprising as it is earned, a well deserved arc of redemption. I am at the edge of my seat, crying tears of joy."
Krow can feel his spine bending slightly in response to immense metaphysical pressure originating from the little bubble popping not even half a metre from him.
If these things touch me...
Criiiiiiiiiiiinge.
More bubbles join the fray, their intent clear. There is no more ambient floating, a will has been forced into them from an unknown source. Krow can feel it in the zaturation, it gets stronger in the city itself. In Sedizima, something is controlling the bubbles, and it doesn't like visitors. Like Krow.
I'm visiting?
Where are the hotels?
Krow dodges a bubble, then another. He tries to make sure that he's dodging towards the city itself, making his way slowly but surely towards the ruined society column.
It is tiring work. By the time he's arrived at the city proper, the harbor a distant memory, he's exhausted. Yet the bubbles don't tire. They assault and they pop upon touch like little party poopers. In the city, the zaturation of little water spheres becomes a real nuisance. We're getting to levels of agility where even a fay acrobat hopped up on claymorph would start having difficulty keeping up. So naturally, Krow is struggling. If he doesn't find shelter from these things in the next three seconds, there will be a pop on his skin.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, KUSO!" each shit is a dodged bubble, the final kazango curse is when time slows down. In a fearful way, not literally. Krow sees a single, brave bubble make a beeline for his exposed chest. The flapping of his vest seems to cease all together, the passage of time appearing frozen. Inside his metaphysical body, a decision is being debated.
Do the blind journey, or all is lost.
Maybe Ragnalon isn't such a bad idea after all...
No maps lead to this blackened arcade of antiquity.
No roads, no way of knowing.
The truth will sink into obscurity, more surely than a lead ball in water.
...
The dice have been rolled.
...fuck it.
Krow twitches a single muscle of his corvid index talon, starting a simple triforced teleportation stave. In meta time, it takes an entire song. In reel time, it takes a split second. Not even that. Half a blink. In one third of a flustered blink, Krow materializes somewhere else. Through a stroke of dumb luck, he isn't teleported into a wall. He is now in a room, inside the ancient dworf city of Sedizima.
I'm safe and sound.
There is a sound coming from somewhere, it is not safe.
More woe?
More like woah.
Krow dusts himself off, satisfied with the results of his dumbass luck. Teleportation worked, he's now inside, safe and somewhat sound. Sound of mind and body. He checks his regular right hand. The fingers wiggle.
Good.
He checks his left hand, a blackened mutation. Wiggling corvid claws, he nods. Satisfied. Pleased, even. Only then does he look around, taking those fresh surroundings by the reins. He doesn't like what he's seeing.
I don't like what I'm seeing.
Inside the giant column is a hollowed out stump of what used to be civilized heights. More ruins, more dereliction. Is there no end to the ruin.
Hark, the top!
Pinnacle of truth, destiny awaits clad in tubes.
Krow's brazen eye vibrates in its socket, even harder when he looks up. There is something at the far, far, far top of these hollows, something worth seeing. At least until the bubbles cringe him to death. Oh yeah, it's climbing time. Krow checks how much magentic power he has left. It's not looking good, barely enough left for a proper hex, definitely not a doza. A horrible idea rises like bile in his throat. It's an awful idea, usually done in desperate survival times.
These are not desperate survival times. They're curious, smelly idiot times. Krow reaches into the metaphysical core of his own soul...a miniature version of the Nuclear Chaos. There's bound to be some magenta in there.
What are a few memories before the unknown?
Let me become a climbing GOD!
Digging his claws into his soul, he gets the power he needs to cast a proper hex stave. Now he can climb all the way up the hollow, to see what curiosity lies at the top.
On his way up, a few windows give him an overview of the outside. Sedizima is absolutely infested with bubbles, seeking anything with spines to listen.
After hours of climbing, Krow makes it to the top platform in Nick's time. Barely. The skin of his teeth feel raw as the spider climb spell fades away. Now that he stands here, disgust makes a home in his gut.
What the fuck is this?
Before him is a sorry sight. he feels the need to apologise to something. Anything, someone has to feel sorry! He circles the miserable sight for a few minutes, taking in the macabre spectacle one step at a time.
A mummified dworf woman suspended by wires. Tubes stick out of her brain, leading down from whence Krow came, out the walls and into Sedizima proper. Like hoses spewing out-
"Bubbles!"
Oh for fuck's sake. The seismic tremors caused by his verbal exclamation stirs life within the desiccated mummy. The thing starts speaking, though it shouldn't be able to. How do vocal chords produce sound when so dry? I dunno, but it's happening anyway.
"You dare disturb my pleasant life?" croaks the mummy. Damn, listen to those creaky-ass folds strain to produce sound! Unlubricated car engines produce less strain than this woman's rotten vocals. Krow is not bothered, though he should be. This shit is unbearable.
Bear it anyway, and behold my Vicious Mockingbird style!
Krow cracks his knuckles, accidentally cuts into his right backhand. He goes "ouch!" recovers his composure and points mightily at the tube infested mummy; says "What was that? I can't understand you, do you need a glass of water?"
When people say that words contain power, they're being metaphorical...and FOOLISH! That mere sentence is enough to shake the mummy down to her soular core. Every pipe pulsates in anxious rhythm. "You are the nightmare of doubt sent by the Horns to bedevil me towards the Gulf. I will not listen, no more hark!"
The mummy's ears, no more than rotted stumps of mummified flesh at this point, forms a seal over what remains of the woman's ear canal. Then she starts shouting the following over and over again: "I am Veredia Mazcun, and I am worthy!"
Seeing that there's no more reasoning with her, Krow latches a stave on to her soul. There's aggressive feedback, he is rebuked by her spirit. He grins sardonically.
"Greatness, a moshed up pandemonium. You've been busy, Aliz." She doesn't appear to react, but there is a hint of a twitch in her rotten eye. Tear ducts no longer work, but not for lack of trying. "Relatable sister, I've forgotten how to cry too. Let me teach you how!"
Somehow, Krow is speaking directly to her decaying soul! He pushes the attack, his vicious mockery. "You're trapped in a fantasy built on a false positive. I can understand why, looking at your face." The words are cutting. Literally, cuts appear on the dried cadaver. His lingo really DOES have razors.
"Cease and desist, you meanie!" the scene around Krow changes with her desperate cry.
We're at the endgame.
This is only part two.
Part deux.
Part silver.
Part first loser.
We're the endgame.
Beware the dragon that stacks no paper!
Krow appears to be in a different place all together now. Gone is the top of the hollowed city stump. Now he's in an actual stump, made of actual wood, inside an actual tree. It's been a while since he's seen an actual tree, a few centuries at least.
"You will rue this day, mark it!"
"Is there a pen in that dried husk you call a body?"
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Krow is face to face with a dreamt up abomination. The absurdity has been cranked up beyond eleven, this thing makes no fucking sense! Some kind of barnacle with many electric tentacles. The ends of the tentacles look like radome dishes, and they spew-
"Fucking bubbles!" Krow backflips all over the wooden arena, trying not to be cringed to death. They will not pop on his skin this day. That's when the ghost of eureka slaps him silly, sends a message into his soular core.
Pop the bubble.
Never!
I will not die of cringe this day.
The gang will never let me live it down.
Not the small ones.
...?
The big one you're inside.
The revelation threatens to kill Krow through whiplash. Speaking of that particular devil, Krow receives a telepathic message somewhere beyond the bubble.
Silly bird, do you need?
Krow is almost too busy dodging death by cringe to notice that Kithy Flashbang speaks to him directly in his brain. Like a parasite wiggling its way through his gray matter, the baelor's metaphysical messaging is so effortless it sends a shiver up and down Krow's spine.
You guys are back already?!
The spider left the web, do you need?
Krow is tempted to say no out of sheer spite, then a bubble misses him by a picometer, and he relents!
I relent, save me!
Rip a hole in the pandemonium.
Wha-
Pop the bubble, bingus.
I don't wanna!
The cringe!
Do it, or I tell the Captain.
Tell her what?
...
...
...
...no.
Please, not that!
Do it.
Fine!
Krow waits for the opportunity, the perfect time to let off a single flaming bolt of magenta at the fake-ass sky. To let the raw Mosh into this dreamscape.
"You will not ruin! I am Veredia Mazcun, and I am-"
"CRINGE!" Krow casts the triforced stave directly at an opening, free of bubbles. It flies home and rips a tiny hole in the pandemonium. Two bubbles pop...the one holding the fantasy together, and the one landing directly on Krow's bare chest.
"Your self sacrifice in the face of a horrible demise brought a tear to my eyes..." Krow's spine begins bending, sudden pressure forcing it towards a U-shape. "...I am crying, broken, screaming and alive..." Oh, that's some luxury cringe right there. "...your story was so lovely and beautiful. What inspired your selfless arc, and did you have any trouble leaning into that heroic voice bubbling inside your soul?"
Right before the spine's transformation into a U-shape is complete, Krow manages to say one final thing before his soul is sent cringing towards Ragnalon.
"None of this would've happened if I was made dictator."
