@Shinny @Circ @THE ADORATION @odium

"In the fifty-first cycle of my travels I came to the world of the songbird monks, practitioners of what they call the Skua Ree Cawta, or Way of Beak and Claw. I found them a peculiar but amicable civilization, and the mountain peaks of their great aeries a beautiful retreat from the busy worlds of the inner rim, and so I stayed to record their martial art in my chronicle, humbly unexpectant of a species whose bodies are so light, hollow-boned.

I asked one of the monks if I could observe their training and they obliged me, and on the morn I watched the monk perform ritual dances and squawking songs before a great stone in the shape of an egg. Awed was I when with a strike of the monk's tiny fist the stone crumbled to dust. So begins my tale of the Way of Beak and Claw..."

One minute she was Xx_haia-the-ill701_xX, clad in the full glory of her SSS gacha tier legendary loot, leading her guildmates into the Lunar Rift megadungeon with her fearsome battlecry Kokekokko! The next she was Haialark, eyes dilated from a cocktail of stimulants and raw catecholamines flooding every synapse, looking around herself and blinking in confusion, senses invaded by the utter disconnect. Wet cityscape and chilling fog assailed her eyes, the smell of asphalt in rain, faraway sounds of waves crashing against the shore punctuated by the deep, slow ringing of a bell. Funeral toll?

She tried to ping the guild channel but couldn't connect. For a millisecond Haialark was stunlocked, resisting the rising urge to incarnate the proverbial chicken with her head cut off, a hundred thoughts cramming themselves through her brain at once. The first were anger and confusion. The devs? Did the fucking server stutter or did she lag out for a second or what kind of shitty bug was--

Overhead she saw the chipped face of a hungy moon leering down at them and the adrenaline started to bubble back up inside her. She was supposed to be there with her guildmates, but that wasn't the megadungeon she remembered. She did not know those stars or constellations, couldn't fathom the prophecies they augured for her tonight. Then realization dawned on Haialark like the truth of battle to Phanskwa in the Scriptures of the Talon. Without taking her eyes off the crowd she peripherally noticed advancing towards them, her recessed little avian eyes swept over her new party, purple sparks of phosphorescence in the mist.

The glowing mammal and the shining geometrical synth were so-- so smooth, awakening an atavistic compulsion to collect them and fly off to put them in her nest, but in a stunning feat of self-control Haialark tore her gaze away from them. The soreness helped. She was getting insanely on point haptic feedback, like her gaming chamber's nutritubes and vitapumps had been undelicately yanked from her orifices as opposed to tastefully retracted. How had they imported her physical specs to sub in for her EO avatar? Brain-to-machine interfaces were supposed to be strictly one-way, making this highly illegal.

Haialark loved it. No UI was a nice touch.

Claw rising to her back, the tattered damp robes of a songbird monk hanging from her scrawny limbs, a beatific calm settled over her. As the elders said, everything made sense once the Yolk settled. Of course this was merely a tutorial. Any newb fresh out of character creation that wandered into an Empyrea Online PK zone quickly learned the handle haia-the-ill (numbers and edgelord aesthetics notwithstanding, as anyway these varied from alt to alt) and to keep a finger on the logout button when her tag popped into draw distance on the UI.

If the devs wanted her to fear the fodder, they wouldn't have left her the Featherblade.

"Alright, DLC dropped, we just got drafted for the beta test. Get ready for some unbalanced PVE," she squawked. "Mid range add in front, if this goes violent, someone CC him and see if his loot's worth farming. If it comes down to it I'll go sicko on the trash mobs."

That was all the demented avian creature offered as far as a signal to her companions that may or may not understand the hoots and crows of the violet vulture alien beside them before, with a single steadying breath, she unsheathed the Featherblade and cawed a first and only warning, "Come no closer unless you want me to camp you for twenty respawn cycles, little lootboxes. Identify your faction and fetch quest, and be quick about it!"

There is a door.

It stands alone, without any walls to support it, without any rooms to divide from one another. Its frame is made of ragged petrified wood, and the rest of stone so perfectly polished, so delicately and finely carved as to be a work of art. Its handles are two palm-sized diamonds that catch the pallid light of the suns in a soft kaleidoscope amidst the ceaseless dawn and dusk.

There is a door.

It is not far from the only building within a hundred miles, or perhaps in the entire world. It resembles a ziggurat, with its flat, narrowing terraces and climbing steep stairways. In place of greenery, however, there are only carefully-tended sand gardens; instead of trailing vines, strands of rough-cut gemstones that sparkle but dimly. No light comes from within, and seldom any sound, for its master knows his own voice well enough, and this land knows no other.

There is a door.

It is on a beach of the finest white, although the word lost its meaning around the time that the last of the ocean disappeared. Dunes stretch almost as far as the eye can see, broken only by the distant mountains, their shadows blacker than black, their peaks like the weathered ribs of the world poking at the heavens, their immensity, their weight so very real as to anchor everything else in place.

There is a door, and A GRACEFUL HAND has opened it, just enough.

It is the threshold from lands unknown unto ruination. It is the gate to a place bathed in the soft light of cooling stars, beautiful in its almost flawless desolation, terminus absolute. And, when seen in reverse, the entry to a high-fated city under the watch of merciless stars; it is the perfect place, and the only place, to best augur what will come next.

So through the door, the lonely path, not out of mind but out of sight...at least for the time being.

A HAND pulls upon the handle, just a little, and there is a satisfying click.

There is no door.

---

Gregor gasped, and it was the most wonderful breath he'd had in years.

The air tasted nothing of disuse, of decay, of a wasteland so complete as to reach down to the atomic level. It was damp - damp! - and alive with a hundred different scents. And the sounds! The roar of the ocean, so close that he wondered when it might start to wash up against his shell. The mutter of living, breathing bodies gathering closer to where he lay; not running and screaming, not gasping out their last, but persisting.

And the moon above...shattered, but so luminous as to almost blind (though that could have been something else, perhaps?)

He rose to his feet slowly, towering over the assembled wharf rats like a doomsday monolith: an impossible presence of slowly-shifting rock in the shape of a man. A trickle of white mist seeped from the gaping, lightless hole in its face, and but for that and a sniffle, nobody would have known about the tears streaming down his cheeks.

It was so beautiful, and none of it was dead. He was reduced.

He held up his palm at arm's length toward the leader, a slab of gray around the size of the man's chest. Strange symbols crawled across the skin, never staying the same for very long, never wanting the eye to sit upon them, never quite forming a recognizable pattern. There needn't be any killing today, he wanted to say, why not meet as friends, brothers and sisters?

And with a voice like an old radio playing down a long, dark tunnel he spoke:

"My friend, I have good news: your deaths are not guaranteed today! Come closer, let me see you, let's talk, let's eat! I stand here and everyone still lives, and we have to celebrate!"

White, weak light splays through a pane, intermittently illuminating a dew-warped reality in pulsar flashes complementary with a siren’s baleful wail. A world beyond his reach, increasingly distant, redshifted. Along his bewildered periphery, it forms a hole in the sidereal blur within which aperture clarity reconciles and digital mountains rise and crash. Rusty, cramped mountains with shattered pits for eyes. To him, they feel dead, and with him by chance or fate in passage intertwined. Ice knots up inside his gut, he needs to hurl. He can’t. Can’t move. Still, a few wink, offer hope—beatific, bright, neon, shimmering. He cherishes that, the light and its melancholy, anodyne lies. He mourns its transience, pattern ever less periodic and ever more by darkness deformed.

“Hafadac, you’re going to be alright.”

Na~ah, he can’t articulate to rebuff, chemically sluggish and suspended from concern—ethereal. A cloud. A rain cloud. If only, ... if only he could gather his thoughts, exist beyond those argent pulses, ... care.

Eye droops, blinks, refocuses. So suave, his yellow and black kicks. Prized possessions, second only to his hooded jacket, similar color motif, but rather than abstract interlace it boasts eastern dragons racing down either sleeve. Must’ve been opened up, chill air and latex pressure probes inside his abdomen.

There’s so much he’d like to say, but his mouth won’t open. A gurgle, he hears—sanguine, the texture, not the hue. So much he longs to do, but his limbs lie immobile, his body inert. How can he denounce that acerbic stench or recoil from the roving six-eyed beast if he can neither plead nor flee? The light blinds, but the room is dark. Relentless, the wail drones on and on and on and his mind conjures up a tundra, two wolves, one dead, the other eternally mourning.

Finally it—zot swallows him, lured by his careless, carefree nature.

Tears trace down his cheek like Tetris blocks.

— ⚈ —

This feels right, Hafadac reflects, roused from a peculiar insight, a flash of portent between the when and the now.

Rump firm atop damp, rough concrete. A weird, cratered moon peers down at him, his vision captive. No need to shiver, he embraces the brisk foretaste in his soul before it robs him of warmth. Sonorous, distant, poignant, he hears the toll of a bell, as though it heralds an important moment.

Dunno where I’m at, how I’m here, who made me whole, but ... feels right. Dunno how else to put it. Better than ... what? What happened?

You there, Khodai? This Elysium?

No lingering musk.

Seated, propped up by a metal pole, detached, itself wedged against the floor and the wall of this large, dark, liminal space. Firm against his back, not sharp, piercing, penetrating like—well, perhaps best to dwell on that later. It feels empty, if only because he’s there again, in that moment. White, weak light. Reality on pause. No strobes, no darkness, no many-eyed monster. Just constant airy peace drifting on a night wind. Present within himself, in the lull, Hafadac breathes serene and silent. Waves break against the wharf, reliable, reassuring. Across the way, a dillapidated warehouse, vast sheets of aluminum pulled from the sides. Easy to see into. Starlings in the rafters, broken skylights with shards of glass lining the window frames, and beams that stretch on forever, foreshortening into an artificial horizon.

Now, the time is now.

Palm braced against the floor, Hafadac lets his wet eye rest, stands, and listens.

» “Alight, DLC dropped — I have good news — ” ...
» “If this goes violent — Come closer — □□□□-□□□□-□□□□ —” ...
» “We have to celebrate! — Be quick about it! —” ...

As desired, an eye in the storm. Photoreceptors in his digitized mask dim a brilliant arc display that fades to muted gold, this world cast in the light of his own blood. Three souls he feels an inexplicable bond with, strangers whom, in so brief a spell, he is too dumbfounded to assay. Pristine chaos saturates the milieu. ‘Ivory’ dashes for the door, ‘Skeksi’ speaks, and ‘Pillar’ rumbles. Meanwhile, Hafadac’s half-gaze settles on the dazed middle-aged man holding a large stone.

Cheeks hollow, clothing torn, the man’s appearance speaks to his begrimed and desperate but, as yet, undefeated spirit. Tenuous and selfish, yes, but it strikes Hafadac that this person and his comrades grasp at life, clinging to a narrow implausible hope that their crimes, as yet uncommitted, might improve their dire circumstance. So he strides forward, wraps his arms around the guy, back-taps, a real bro-hug, and, voice mellow, deep, soothes, “Hey, buddy, uh, just wanna let you know it’ll be alright. Keep blinkin’, you’ll see again. Say, wanna hear a joke? Yeah, yeah. Why did the Mexican take anti-anxiety meds? For HISPANIC attacks!” Another firm open-palm thump on the man’s back, and he steps back, catches the rock as it drops, and nervously tosses it from one hand to the other.

A pained chuckle and the man muses, “That’s messed up.”

Rather than ruin the moment, Hafadac’s half-mask flashes indecisive between a bright yellow pixelated half-smile over a winking eye and a thumb’s up icon.

@Shinny @Circ @THE ADORATION @odium

It is said that King Khuak the Wise fell mad with prey-lust and shiny-want in the latter days of his flight,
crowing that he would hatch again from the great egg of the sun immortal, his nest eternal,
and in glory he departed from the communal tree to soar into its light,
never to return from the answers he found there

Haialark's head twitched corvid-quick from scene to scene: beautiful glowbaby shiny-shining emoji-bright; golem man, stone-strong and definitely a tank, cool cosmetics but direly in need of a better mic if he wanted to voice chat that badly; lovely symmetrical smoothface, so alluring she could hardly control the impulse to collect her perfect geometrical chassis and bioluminescent glowbaby together in her nest and polish them —

GAWK! Daydreaming, the flashbang caught Haialark totally off guard. It so happened that simultaneously she hit the first peak on the fierce cocktail of stimulants intended to carry her through the next few days of raid-grinding. Everything looked mostly okay after a cursory sweep of her limited augmentations but she sincerely hoped her endocrine mods hadn't gotten disconfigured in the jump, because otherwise she was going to be one speedy roadrunner very shortly.

It troubled her that trash mobs were fleeing from their destiny as delightful little bags of xp locking whales like herself into the frictionless dopamine loop of watching numbers go up. Haialark singlehandedly represented a full 19% of average round DPS in CTRL ALT ELITE, a guild forty-nine members strong on this highly planned raid and who were absolutely screwed without her to outpace the regen on the megadungeon superboss.

Possessed of a supremely gifted mind when it came to MMORPG number crunching and the calculation of obscenely precise loot reward tables, Haialark instantaneously interpolated a rough polynomial curve of the revised guild DPS in function of buff cooldown timers according to a new pattern designed to conserve resources without her.

Maybe if they committed to a blind speedrun of the DLC she could pull something off, but her feathers ruffled as another thought cracked its shell against her mind. No one else seemed to be recognizing they were playing Empyrea Online at all. Had Haialark broken kayfabe?

In the truly grognardy secret subquests five layers into the alternate reality game simultaneously occurring within the matrioshka doll of Empyrea Online deeplore, if you didn't embrace roleplaying with fidelity to your character archetype you could miss certain triggers and fuck up years worth of progress. Terrifying to consider what she might have put at risk.

Vision sharpened again, hawk-hunting, she watched the fleeing creatures. Their tiny little mammalian eyes, white and wide. So afraid. Noticing silverface near the warehouse, Haialark took a breath, feathered arms shifting into full streamlined wings, raven-black. Allowing her boiling thoughts of the raid to go dim and monochrome, she ran, a great bird of prey rushing towards her companion with a hooked beak built to slip between vertebrae and sever spines, violet eyes alien and unreadable.

Meaning no threat Haialark chirped, "Of course, o stunningly polished one. Clever gambit, to hunt the hunter. Slip into their nests and crack their eggs. I shall open the way." Naturally she shared their mutual understanding that this was a way of progressing the main quest to an inevitable boss encounter. 017 had shown she was going to be the utility bot stunlocking the enemy, and her support would assuredly be necessary for Haialark to optimize her DPS.

This desire to be near 017 had absolutely nothing to do with her lovely metallic gleam, the declension of light off its surface, at each instant perfectly unique, shininess ever shifting...

Haialark gently brushed the chain from her hands so it clattered against the door. She drew the breath inward, submerging herself in the divine yolk, and enacted the eleventh cawta of the wing, twenty-feathered strike of the roaring garuda (オタク面白い鳥人武道テクニック), the tip of her dark plumage thrusting forward at great speed so that its uttermost extreme rested softly against the lock. Haialark gave a squawk of exertion and her eerie purple luminescence radiated from the chain, rattling then exploding violently inward as if struck with great force, the door swinging open wildly on its hinges.

Haialark self-rationalized that she wanted to show her likely role in the party as glass cannon DPS and that this also had absolutely no relation to any of her lovely glowing companions, and waited for the rest of the group to gather.

Tough, no chuckle even, Hafadac sighs inwardly as his joke flops, but he plays an upbeat farce. Wet eye scans the three Rats who haven’t thus-far fled, the sad circumstances of their present straits a log for later if rels unsour and situations norm: ‘Sledgie,’ ‘Sourpuss,’ and ‘Mouse.’ Syndicate scum, note—dangerous, probs own this place, harass squatters. Responsive, his other, digital eye relentlessly vacillates, the yellow on black dimming to a buzz-kill intensity while the smile halves and stops winking. Suddenly awkward, shy, he pulls up his hood. Where skin isn’t hidden by jacket, joggers, kicks, and power-fist, it is easy to see his life light mellows to match his mood and deep, smooth, unhurried voice.

“Heard the, uh, stone person; yeah? You’re safe, from us leastwise; maybe safer with. Heck, we should all stick together! You cool cats seem street smart. Why not? What’s worstcase? Oh, yeah... food, food. Don’t have any. Hah! But I’ve got energy shots, you can eat the whole thing.”

Without ado, he reaches in his jacket and reveals a handful of 2 ouncers. Luminescent green-gold liquid sloshes inside, shimmering with flecks of white and the promise of vital verve. They resemble little test tubes, but there’s no obvious cap. Hopefully they don’t assume these are exotic narcotics, he worries behind a grin. Hafadac offers them to the Rats and the stone person, Pillar, the latter whom he recalls mentioning eating. Clueless how. Nada point to prejudge, he decides. Better to observe. Allow others to observe, too. One of the two shots still in hand he pops into his mouth and chews through the sugar, cellulose, and glycerin casing until the flavor shot bursts with a vibrant cara cara punch, chews it all up like saltwater taffy.

“Name’s Hafadac,” he babbles around a chew, “friends call me Glowstick — maybe we catch up with Ivory and Skeksi?”

Too eager to await an answer, he scampers off, gesturing for them to follow. Dilapidated wood planks creak under his bounce, shadowless. Damn, that moon is bright. Weird, too. Where am I even? Time for contemplation short, he arrives at the door just as the avian and robotic duo finish wrecking the padlock.

“Thirsty?” he offers with a catch-toss of the energy shot still in his hand.

Bigger up close, the warehouse looms ominous, pregnant with possibility, perhaps with an exterior clue in the form of signage. Nada. No idea who’s bad side they’re about to get on, what with the breaking and entering. Maybe for the best. Lots of debris, with scans for objects of interest — weapons, spray paint, signage, architectural themes, wifi, access ports — ongoing. Maybe inside, he’d learn more. But for now, he sates his curiosity and asks, “Recouping from what?”

— ⚈ —

Intrusive thoughts unwind time in his mind, backing him into the corner of his situationship. He’s not physically tired. More manic than normal, actually. But his mind is fraught, nervous system taut, and he’s performing like an absolute fake. Bravado. Same insane mental mode that precipitated his pale paralysis ride of white lights and faceless phantoms. No accident, if bad decisions pass for intent. That’s nature, the fate of those who don’t fit in with the rest of society and have the temerity to believe, think, and act like they can just be. Just exist. Bright blood, body mods, tats—all cool. Animism—weird, but still friends. Backing down from a dare? Not in a dozen lifetimes, even if everyone knew the risks.

— ⚈ —

Stale air from the building’s exposed innards hits his nostrils, and just like that Hafadac’s back.

"Kill...you?"

The voice that came out of that yawning black hole of a face sounded different now. A little closer, a little more focused, a little less imposing...and a lot more confused.

He stepped over to the filthy girl, his movements slow but strangely fluid, like lava sliding down a mountainside. His feet landed tombstone heavy on the damp cement and he knelt down to face her, the lightless chasm feet away from her dirt-streaked face.

"Who said anything about killing anybody? Nobody's here to kill anybody, right?" He looked around as if seeking confirmation from everyone present: from his fellow travelers (who had abandoned him, he saw, in favor of prying open a door to shelter) and from the other two Rats, the bruiser and the sour man whose faces showed a mix of fear, anger and acceptance.

"Life's precious," he said, stretching his arms out as if to grasp the whole of the city and the ruinous moon above, "this is all a gift. You haven't done anything here that you can't take back, so you don't need to worry."

He rose to his full height then, slow and steady as the tide washing away the shore, and considered the glowing capsule that Hafadac had tossed him as if just noticing it. With a little shrug - the rumble of wet stone against itself - he tilted back his head and dropped it into the abyss, sighing contentedly a few moments later.

"A gift," he repeated fondly, the words so unlike the crackling, distant buzz from before, "that shouldn't be wasted. Tell me your names, new friends. Tell me where I am. There's so much that I want to know."

"My name is-" he began, but when he spoke the Name, what came out was wrong; sounds layered and interwoven, contrasting and conflicting, disharmony conjoined.

"Gregor," said the man.

"Forever" said the serpent.

"Let's get inside with the others. It doesn't seem safe out here."

@Shinny @Circ @THE ADORATION @odium

@Liaison @54v @Drifting Pollen @Spider Pickle @Alucroas

Two pairs of eyes locked. One, a fiery set of dark brown eyes below determined brows without a shadow of a doubt in their passionate gaze. The other, flustered red cheeks beyond their brush applied blush, below a confused, deep, cerulean set. An overwhelmingly collective gasp overtook the red carpet's audience and partakers.

Perhaps it was the collective acknowledgment of witnessing the rare spectacle many claim to have experienced but only a few have. The divine luxury of love at first sight. Red and white rose petals serenely peppered the beautiful scene as many twisted their necks searching for the source.

“At this glorious gala in which the moonlight caresses your pale skin, I now know. Under this atrium of stars, it is clear. A thousand sonnets grow in my heart for you shine brighter than them all.”

Kissing the silky opera-gloved hand nestled into the gentle embrace of his palm, out of thin air, on one knee, Edris presented the fullest, most lush, bouquet of roses to have met this woman he had just met eyes with. Dozens of camera shutters rang off, capturing this moment between the hitman and Jadwiga a hundred times over, for millions of impressions, for thousands of media outlets. You could almost mistake it for applause.

“Edris, you sly devil. One might think you're from Aeternus. You've outdone yourself again.” Mentally patting himself on the back, his Buloke-solid confidence was sure to woo the popular socialite. No woman escaped his charm but the pheromones from her direction seemed overmatched by a hostile odor. Surely such a wrathful scent couldn't have come from Jadwiga in her wondrous, violet, jewel-embezzled gown glowing in ethereal beauty. Only in raising his bowed head, whipping back his silver-ish lavender hair did Edris notice Jadwiga's date to the ball red as a tomato with anger.

Veins bulging, this monstrously tall man, well over eight feet tall, but fairly proportionate, practically flexed out of his teal three-piece suit. Off came his collar button, popping out of tension at such velocity it detached some unfortunate influencer's retina on impact. With the crowd paying no mind to that, an intense stare-off between Edris and Vellotoni Versarache visibly sparked. The crowd went quiet, tension thick as oatmeal left out for half a day.

…

“I'm not apologizing.”

Edris' palm held an imaginary grip in the shape of a hilt as a single vine crawled from underneath his gold cufflinks, sprouting a flower blooming into a sword. Then it was black. Surely he did not murder a man in blind rage. It was against the assassins code.

Only the sensation of a cold hand pressing against his hollow frame did Edris feel anything. Lids open but sightless, the same cold hand dropped something into his skull. Until then, it felt like the concept of vision was foreign to him. Another hand crept near his face, doubling it. The same hands navigated his sternum, installing piece after piece as if he were a creation at the hands of Geppetto. Edris thought perhaps, this is how God designed us all, until the moment came when we finally were seemingly complete, later carrying our limp frames, hooking us to a conveyor belt. To where? A journey back to them, but only after experiencing the world whilst bearing the intentional gift and curse of life. With pleasure comes great pain. The pain of knowing this is unattainable makes us human, yet, internally… Edris challenged that. Until now he only felt one with Mother Nature. Who was this? Blasphemy. Before he could oust these thoughts, an unfamiliar voice fancied the thought of a destination to his psyche. Where? Edris would know once saw it. It was near, but where was he?

The flow of petals stopped, laying soggy on the top of the murky marsh staining the hitman’s white, heeled leather boots. A rancid smell assaulted the nostrils of Edris' souring face, distracting from not only the dream he awoke from, but the not so distant chitters, crunching and tearing. Quick hands allowed him to salvage his impeccably stylish tweed suit aside from a few splashes of muck. Springing up immediately, it was only so long Edris could watch his hand model-caliber hands slowly sink into the mud. A line of dirt packed every distal edge of his nails. It was already the worst-case scenario. What if…someone…saw him? Whoever did this had to pay, and soon. It was a good thing he had an idea where to look.

Looking up, the grayed skies could be mistaken as smoke. As dense as the forest was, the fog affected the visibility of the colossal mangroves standing mightily in the bog. At first, Edris thought he may have gotten something in his mouth but it was just the aftertaste of the absurdly moist swamp air. Following him were squelching sounds of his trot out of the thick mire of mud he found himself as unfortunate to spawn in. Each step sunk him deeper into the morass of uncertainty. Getting back to the Gala was an impossibility at this point.

Artificiality became nothingness, then from nothingness came organic touch and feeling. Wet and dirty, hard and solid yet undependable and unreliable and unstable. Nobomi, hesitantly, gripped the stuff beneath her fingers. Cold earth.

She awoke. She'd been awake, but not fully conscious or aware. Sobering chill, a different chill from the drunken, drugging environment of before, of back there. She was in a new place.

New, but from where? What was that place that came before?

Her head rolled to the side automatically, alerted by strange noises. A creature. Many creatures. Domesticated? She didn't think so. Even if they were, the one now directing its body towards them-Potential threat to the godspawn.

Godspawn?

Her cleaner hand crawled up to the hem of her robes, outstretched fingers, tapped skin. Goosebumps. Tapped... metal. Important. But why?

Panic filled her muscles like hydraulic fluid and she hinged forwards. Panic filled her mind like cooling fluid as it overclocked itself.

It rose too. Viscera hung from its belly. Perhaps inside its belly as well.

Metal. Where's metal? It was a lifeline, something told her. Use it. Destroy your opposition.

Opposite to her instinct, she closed her eyes. This was the path of least resistance -- less distraction, more focus, despite this beast being exactly the sort of thing that should hold her attention. Trace amounts, iron in the earth, in their blood -- not enough. Milliseconds flying by and she's doing nothing.

Swollen with wakefulness, she let her eyelids fly open and her feet strike the stone in unsteady strides, moving aside. Perpendicular, the most logical direction given an airborne enemy. She ran. She stumbled. She gripped rough, scratchy material to stay upright, looped around this... organic support beam she'd grabbed, using its width as a shield while she cranked out thoughts, or tried, but the gears were rusty -- from disuse, she realized. She must not have used her mind much in that time and place before.

What did she need? To survive protect. How? She thought over the situation and her surroundings.

She was not alone, there were others too. She peered around her gray-brown protective barrier. A green, humanoid beast. A few humans. But were they humans? Close enough term. No metal, unless she was willing to risk their health by robbing them of important metals. But would it matter once their blood joined the bloodbath on those bellies of those disgusting creatures?

Wait. So much blood. So much iron right there! So much... or so she hoped... Pressing her back against the rough brown thing holding up the living ceiling above, she closed her eyes and searched for metals in all the blood both in and on the creatures' bellies, everything they had digested or attempted to ingest. Iron, zinc, copper -- anything. All the same.

The realization that players and NPCs alike obeyed kayfabe provoked a profound unease in Haialark. Her body language became considerably more subdued as characters she had taken for low level trash mobs received names and even backstories, further reinforcing her belief that the usual rules of game design were not in play. The many databases of esoteric Empyrea Online lore and loot tables permanently cached in Haialark's memory reeled under the weight of all this new information. It was catastrophically uncharted, a whole new game, and she would have to improvise her strat on the fly...

Yet, how many myths discarded as EO cut content would turn out to be true? This was a neurodivergent genius tier easter egg, an entire layer of game hidden so deep within the game it would never emerge as more than rumor and legend. And the loot. Treasures unfathomable had to be waiting for them out here. Haia's head twitched and her eyes dropped to the hilt of the Featherblade. No matter how she balked at the loss of all her accumulated mastery, this was a golden opportunity to cut the name Xx_haia-the-ill701_xX permanently into the skin of history.

As the group moved towards the warehouse, her gaze swept over nearby rooftops, raptor vision keen to pluck the outline of a drone from amid the dark clouds bruising the night sky. This had to be livestreamed, Haia knew instinctively. The algorithm demanded an audience for content like this. Her best chance at confirming her suspicions about all of this would be to find one such seam in the game world, something the devs couldn't hide. She needed merely to wait. Outside, she noticed that the despawn timers hadn't expired on any of the corpses.

Her body prickled as they passed over the threshold into the warehouse and she immediately detected the massive arachnid creature sprawled over the ceiling. Excitement and bloodlust spiked through her -- she knew a boss monster when she saw one -- then died down as she realized it wasn't moving. Nonetheless, its presence and the undeniable dungeon vibe of the game assets strewn around them suggested to Haialark that they were headed in the right direction.

Permanently locked into the mindset of a gacha whale powerleveling a new account, it was practically impossible for her to focus on the dialogue of introductory quest NPCs, and Peggy's hopeful pleading slid off the smooth surface of her bird brain. When the beautiful precious shiny 017 spoke, however, she hyperfixated on the intricacy of every synthetic inflection. She nodded enthusiastially after her cherished companion concluded their speech and gestured with one taloned hand at the warehouse around them, the other never leaving her sword hilt.

"Yes yes!" she agreed in two staccato squawks, totally unaware of Peggy's warning. She took 017's dialogue to hopefully indicate the party shared her intuition that they needed to trigger some kind of gated story progression, most likely kill the spider demon unless the devs had included multiple paths through the questline, and continue on.

"We should investigate this place and see if we find any answers here." She took a few cautious steps towards the caged gravel, observing it with the predator curiosity of an eagle watching a mouse.

@Circ @Shinny @THE ADORATION @Divorarel

A single step, that’s all it takes. Hafadac enters the warehouse and a tide of awe inundates him. Nostalgic, that’s his expression. Thoughts distant, eyes radiant with inner light, lips at a slight part midway through a breath vitrified in spacetime and made perfect through sentiment. Rust on the walls, dust and footprints on the floor, graffiti on the ceiling, and bone-rattling music reverberating throughout.

Just a wistful boy remembering something unimportant a multiverse away, a gold tear inexplicably on his cheek.

This is perfect.

The people he just met, he realizes, are also perfect. Working together, they have the tools for this job, whether they realize it or not. All their missing is a spark. Skeksi has moves, Ivory is a master artisan, and Pillar can boom with the best. Hafadac pulls his gaze down from the spider motif on the ceiling, turns back toward Penny, and declares:

“This whole place is too quiet, too afraid. Gotta flip the script. Gotta make some NOISE!”

“How is noise going to —” Peggy begins to ask, but Hafadac lifts a luminous finger to her mouth, cutting her off. Melodiously, he mansplains; an instant jarring transition from philosopher to performer, half-mask flashing a digital apologetic cringe,

“Stranger to stra~anger,
— Lest we forge~et,
— There’s thu~under in nu~umbers,
— There’s fre~edom in fri~iends!”

He takes a small step back, his finger gliding sensuously along her bottom lip and sweeping the grime off her chin. Propitiously, he implores, “— Fi~ind your hope, your voi~ice, your fight!”

A wink and a bounce, and he kick-slides over on his knees to 017. Glancing up at her at his half-height through an upchurn of dust — budget dry ice — he beholds her wicked-cool fabrication, and, with one big pleading puppy dog eye alongside a crying emoji, belts out in smooth baritone:

“There’s no survi~iving
— if we’re not thri~iving,
— let’s show this world what we~e can make!”

Kicking himself into a backflip from his kneeling posture, he somersaults off his palm and lands in before Haialark, crooning,

“Let’s see your ka~ata
— for this intifa~ada,
— a haka to embolden our clan!”

Twisting one-eighty on one foot, he stares up at Pillar, his big new pal with the rocky visage, and pauses for a moment, intimidation and uncertainty threatening to quench his song. Just a moment, an awkward gulp, then the spirit grasps him and Hafadac intones,

“You’ve got the re~everb,
— A voice that will be~e heard,
— Vibrating deep in our bones!”

Repeating the improv chorus, he marches himself outside, stranger to stranger, and at the top of his lungs finishes what he has to sing — for now,

“Arachnid defi~iers,
— We’ll defang the spi~iders,
— And show them that Rats can roar!

So don’t let fear gui~ide us,
— Nor quell what’s inside us,
— Tonight we se~eize our fate!”

Exaggerating a snap-turn, he takes in his new-found party in their bespoke and self-declared base of operations. Ebullient and glowing something fierce, the sheen of sweat acting as miniature prisms, he practically illuminates the chamber as he points to 017, “Ivory, PYROTECHNICS!” to Haialark, “Skeksi, DANCE!” and to Gregor, “Pillar, SUBWOOFER!”

In his mind, it is obvious what he, himself, will do. Still, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

“Anyone else have a set of pipes?”

Gregor stopped in his tracks as the knife clattered to the ground. The world frozen, a tableau complete, as he pivoted; one man's whole body locked in a bright rictus of pain so all-encompassing that the air could not even leave his lungs; the other holding him in place, his grip and posture as solid and final as the stone man's own. The movement as he turned seemed almost too fluid, though: rock rippling and twisting as though made flesh, bulging slightly as he shifted.

"Thank you for saving his life," the distant, hissing voice sighed, accompanied by a gust of white mist from that fathomless pit of a face.

"What did he think he'd do? Against me? With a knife?" There was indignation there, but also pity. As though he'd been challenged by a child wielding his father's sword. Conrad's eyes drifted down to his broken arm and, with a small whimper, he crumpled to the ground insensate. Batu had the sense to release his grip so that he did not further grind the broken bones.

"And even if he'd somehow cut me, you'd all..." the awful statue sighed again, and shook his head. "It doesn't matter. You did a good thing, and I appreciate it. I hate death more than anything, you know."

"What are you going to do with him now? I can't help fix his arm...it might shock you but I'm not a doctor," Gregor said, and his words seemed very near now, very present; nearly warm.

It was at this moment that Hafadac burst forth, the living embodiment of a bass drop. Even Gregor - that grim, towering omen silhoueted against the light of a broken and decaying moon - was visibly and obviously surprised. He had lived for so long without beauty, missing the joy of music as only one with a hole in their heart could. He had pined for it as the dry wind struck his crystal chimes against one another on the dead world. He'd worried it was beyond his reach until the end of time.

He was not really sure how to react to what was happening to him.

"Will you please take me to somewhere less confusing? At the very least somewhere that I can eat, and where nobody will try to murder me. Is that possible?" he asked Batu.

Some mornings... Were just shit, weren't they? Some mornings did not deserve to exist in this world.

See, a good morning should be like an apple fresh from the tree. Red, smooth, delicious to the eyes, and you took one bite out of it and ah, so sweet and juicy! The kiss of life in your mouth, crisp under your teeth, and you still had that whole apple waiting in your hand, a dozen more perfect bites to take. Whoever needed more of a reason to live than that?

Then there were the bad mornings. The awful mornings. The ones where you bit into that apple to find it already bitter and rotten, full of tiny sticky writhing things that squirmed against the surface of your tongue. You couldn't spit it out, oh no: you had to chew and swallow and wince at the vile taste it left in your mouth. And then you’d look down, at the soft and stinking mass still in your hand, and think:

Fuck me, I still have to eat this entire thing.

Could you really go through with it? Once, twice, three or four days in a row? So much quicker, so much easier, to just curl up in a crying ball and die forever.

Now Halima, she had a sense for these things. She did not even need to open her eyes to know the taste of this morning. Fetid, foul, awash with the lingering poison of a particularly nasty nightmare. The air here felt different from anything she’d known before, and when she reached back through her memories for the point where she’d fallen asleep she found only a jagged cutoff. A quiet moment, basking in the satisfaction of a job well done, and then snap—nightmares, horrors, mind-shattering pain, and now a damp floor surrounded by the whisper of leaves and the wet sucking slurping sounds of far too many mouths all chewing at once.

The closer Halima listened, the further her mood spiraled off down the drain, into a black pit filled with hideous and unmentionable things. A wide smile wrapped its way around her face, toothy as a shark’s. Languidly, gracefully, she rolled up into a sitting position and let her eyes focus themselves upon this latest portrait of horror, this disgusting fruit that life had chosen to serve her.

Just in time, as it turned out. Her lovely pinprick pupils caught movement in the air, an adorably fat and fuzzy creature mid-way through its pounce. What a cutie! Maybe it wanted to be friends. Just look at those slavering mandibles, held wide open like arms awaiting her embrace.

Just look at them explode, scattered fragments of chitin flung this way and that in a glorious rain of red confetti.

The sound of thunder rang out an eyeblink later, though by then Halima had already moved her attention to worthier places. Who cared about dead things, right? She knew she’d placed her bullet well, right where the animal’s hide didn’t protect it. She knew also that the smack of the round landing dead-on would throw the fuzzball’s trajectory elsewhere, far away from poor vulnerable Hali. On a better morning she might have paused to enjoy the fireworks, but this was one of the shitty ones, and she had no time to spare for pleasure.

The apple wouldn’t eat itself. Hatefully, pitifully, she sank her teeth deeper and ravenously devoured bite after rotten bite.

More friends, more fuzzy animals, more hugs and greetings she couldn’t afford to return. Instinct pinpointed the next one to jump before it left the ground, and the thunder of her Valentine smashed its front end open just like its dear eager brother. Oh, a kindred spirit, only wanting to kill and eat and live! How it pained her to put down such wonderful beasts. Her smile widened, straining at the confines of her face.

No matter how many bullets she had on her, there would never be enough for that entire swarm. On her feet now, the tall woman darted for the trees, away from the oncoming tide. Oh, she was quick, and so were they—but those bodies on the ground, two of them yet to rise to their feet, they weren’t moving very fast at all, were they? Far better friends than she, so politely offering themselves up like that.

Let them both enjoy the party, then, while Hali raced between and among the trees like she’d been born to flee through the forest. Surely, if she could only survive this morning, she would find sweeter fruit to feast upon in time.

Black, a little worn, hard, rocky. Lize stared at the asphalt directly in front of her, waiting for her partner to come pick her up. Around her she could hear the mutters of other soldiers, smoking and chatting away while they waited for the vehicle as well. She could hear them talk at her expense, something she had become accustomed to and that she sent back to her headquarters to improve the experience regular human agents had when interacting with robotic ones. Yet, she suspected that no matter how many reports she sent back the situation would not improve.

The last frontier for artificial intelligence development still was interacting with human agents. Despite their endless development, billions spent on trying to interact with real physical agents, they never got past both regulation and what they considered prejudices in most of the population. Everyone knew the machines could work harder, for longer, and for less of a wage, if one at all. For that, they could not be forgiven.

They all had been given human names, human voices, appearances that appeared cute or approachable. In the far east a similar approach had worked wonderfully. They gave all their robotic agents cute animal ears, flashy hair colors, and soft feminine appearances. It reduced the damage inflicted to these machines by a small margin, enough to implement these changes across the board. In a country marred by war, it was cheaper to adapt foreign machines to the local situation, even if it led unintended consequences.

An interrupt cut her thoughts short. In front of her was the vehicle she had been waiting for, alongside her companion for the day. She already knew who she was, the model she was meant to replace that nevertheless would remain in service until she was taken out in some way and irreparably damaged. A body, that which was precious for humans was but a mere sleeve for a machine. She had not experienced total system failure, but the one she accompanied had. Right now, she was wearing a frame not too unlike her own. Bat ears, dark lavender hair and bright cyan-yellow iridescent eyes.

“Good afternoon, Rianne.” Lize said, the other computerized officer remaining silent as she boarded the motorcycle. From then on Rianne decided to communicate only through wireless protocol. It was less human, but much more efficient.

“Target. Medical bill privatized, breach of section 241 article 31. Prioritize damages.” Lize felt coming from Rianne. Though she was the one who said it the signal was signed by a pharmaceutical company. The objective was simple, to incur as expensive of a medical bill as possible upon the rioter knowing his illegal acts will not be covered by insurance. This would help the company made money out of his debt and probably place him in indentured servitude for the next 10 years.

Understanding her assignment she hopped down from the motorbike, a thud followed by thunderous footsteps. The clicking of her boots was bothersome, but the psychological effects it granted were more attractive to law enforcement than any amount of stealth they could provide. The protestor was quick to react, throwing the rock he had in his hand at Liza before he ran away from her. It was useless, before he knew it his rock had missed, and he was on the ground.

There was no feeling going through the enforcer’s mind, simply a subroutine that was practiced so much it had become almost perfect. As she heard her fists become more humid, and the person under her stop resisting she wondered what other tasks she would be assigned next. Though, that thought would quickly be replaced by an unexpected darkness.

Pain. A sensation alien to her microarchitecture. It felt weird, wrong, an unexplainable error that was now etched into her memory. It was written alongside a message, but she had to get up first. She was on the floor, her systems initializing again in a fraction of a second and bringing her back to the real world. The strange memories remained within her system, read and interpreted in parallel to her assessing the situation she was in. She took in the sounds of thousands of tiny legs, the chewing of just as many mouths, the forest, and the sudden display of aggression.

That was not all, as her ears moved about, like satellite dishes, and her eyes darted rapidly between moving objects, she took in more of her surroundings. There were others, some threatened while others not so much. For now, she focused on helping those who seemed most vulnerable, which was not her this time around. Luckily for her one of them seemed to not attract the creatures, though unfortunately another also seemed quite eager to dismember the beasts. Even if they were not social animals, clearly having some of their own killed would not elicit a very warm welcome. Not that they had been welcoming in the beginning, but this could only worsen things.

A few milliseconds passed, and she had to act. Right as the cow pill bug mix tried to consume her, she moved away from it. Her body did not whine, instead moving like an experienced traceuse right as the creature moved, leaving it biting on the forest’s leaf litter. She did not have the dexterity Her baton unfolded as she approached the insect going after the incredibly herbal and well-dressed man. A plastic snap, a metallic ring, and an electrical crack followed rapidly one after the other. She moved like a blur, striking the insect in one of its mouths with both the force of a machine and an electric shock meant for cattle, tuned up slightly for particularly annoying protestors. The sword-like baton left behind deep lacerations despite its blunt edge, charred spots mixing in with bleeding exposed played skin, past the leathery and furry protection of the creature. A fast attack, meant to be quick and uncommitted, not incredibly lethal, but also very painful.

With that done, she would drag the man out of his swampy situation and back towards the tree where the other woman went while she remained in front, ready to hit any incoming tasty-deadly abominations with the wrath of Zeus and the might of strangely durable cheap plastic. She kept her weapon at the ready, her eyes darting rapidly between the incoming bugs, backing away slowly and delivering searing strikes at any that got close to her. She hoped this would give time to the others to move away while also giving her some space with the flyswatter-like movements.