Chapter 8: Chapter 8: The pressing of writhing flesh

---

 

 

 

“What am I?” asks a voice from down below.

 

A countless swarm of eyes turn towards its source, looking at the wretched figure that lies down on the wet stones at his feet. Her confused, newborn eyes look up towards the Demon-King, clearly trying to examine her own changed body at the same time, but finding it impossible to release from the presence of his gaze.

 

“Something that is where it belongs,” replies the Demon-King, looking at the cook. “Cartouche.”

 

— Cartouche teleports in, landing before the throne on a knee, surrounded on all sides by wailing, howling statues that have no voices.

 

“Accommodate our newest,” he orders.

 

The dancer nods and lowers her head, stepping away from the throne and helping the cook to her feet. “I don’t…” The confused once-dark-elf looks around herself. “I don’t understand,” she says. “Why am I here? Am I supposed to cook for you?” she asks, looking towards the Demon-King and his hundreds of salivating mouths, running as open, wet gashes across his horrific form.

 

Cartouche helps the unsteady creature walk to the quarters built into the side of the throne-room.

 

“No,” replies Swain, watching them leave. “You’re supposed to cook for you,” he replies, waving them off with the back of a massive set of fingers that hardly leave the arm-rest of the throne.

 

 

The two of them leave, vanishing around the bend, and Swain sits there, remaining bathed in nigh-total darkness, haunted by the illuminating trails of souls that fly his way.

 

He rests his head on his hand, his elbow on the rest, as he thinks.

 

He isn’t too sure of what he thinks, exactly. They’re just… thoughts. They’re thoughts of an old life, of an old person who he used to be and of all the people who were there around himself. But he can hardly remember any of it. But it can’t be worth remembering, can it?

 

The Demon-King presides upon his throne.

 

If that had been the case, he wouldn’t be here now, right?

 

He wonders if they’re watching.

 

Swain wonders if all of those people, those… creatures, who made him what he is, if they’re watching him from the other side of life. He wonders if they’re standing there, with clenched fingers, grasping the edge of their metaphorical blankets in fear as the monster below their beds clicks and clacks and moves closer towards them step, by step, by step. He’s coming for them.

 

What was her name? The girl who hurt him?

 

He can’t remember it.

 

Who was she?

 

He can’t remember.

 

The girl, the woman, the witch that stole his heart at the stroke of midnight and left only darkness.

 

— The Demon-King stares into the void above his head as he thinks of her.

 

He thinks of every detail he can remember, as he does often, but they become no clearer. In fact, the more he thinks about the specifics, the odder the image of her becomes, as he knows only bits and pieces of her.

 

He only knows what she smells like. Wildflowers.

 

He only knows what she tastes like. Sweetness.

 

He only knows the sensation of her warm lips on his own. Soft.

 

He only knows the wretched ache of the bony, gaunt hands that had torn his soul in two. Cold and hard.

 

And these things together do not make a coherent image. Instead, as his thoughts focus solely on these elements that he does know, it distorts the image of her in his mind, pulling it further and further away from the humanity the girl was perhaps likely to have possessed, leaving only an unnatural construct of energy in his mind — His imaginary vision of her is only the twisted summation of the feelings of a young man’s broken, rotting heart.

 

She is the perfume of lust, sprayed onto a corpse with no face. She is a sister’s knife, rammed into the heart of her twin. She is the desecration of the concept of love. She, the woman, is the avatar of everything inhumane, twisted, wicked, and vile that crawls in the creeping darkness.

 

That is who she is. That is the only memory the Demon-King himself has of the creature with no name. A true monstrosity, hiding behind a veneer of warmth and softness.

 

He himself is nothing but a whimpering shadow in the malignancy that the colossus of her memory presents in his mind.

 

“Abydos,” barks Swain.

 

Abydos teleports in, landing before the throne and lowering himself down onto the slithering, sliding shadow that moves beneath his feet.

 

“Yes?” asks the painter.

 

“We must expand,” says Swain. “The next section of the castle is yours to carve,” orders the Demon-King. The painter looks up his way. “Make it a masterpiece.”

 

Abydos nods and then simply vanishes as he teleports away.

 

Swain grips the edge of the throne.

 

He can feel them coming.

 

Not the intruders, who are already inside the dungeon. They are as good as lost to the screaming horror of his world.

 

No. He can feel… the mass of new bodies directing themselves towards him. Even if they are outside of his territory, he can sense them. Thousands, millions of them have turned their gazes towards the harrowing fortress of the Demon-King’s castle. Elves, humans, orcs, dwarves, fairies — anything and everything, from every continent in the world, from behind every pane of glass and within the confines of every boot and shoe, every living, conscious entity has turned to look his way.

 

And those who are strong enough, those who are capable and willing enough, they have begun moving, marching, sailing, flying, whatever they can do to get here, to arrive before the demon-hour strikes midnight.

 

The fools.

 

Little do they know that they’re just what he needs.

 

More souls.

 

 

He can’t help but wonder if humans and their ilk are truly the most naive of all living creatures?

 

His own foolishness as a man is what made him what he has become.

 

And theirs will make them what they will become.

 

— Something other.

 

---

 

 

“Troubling times, Sister,” says Viseli, looking at his fellow follower of the faith – a human. He adjusts the straps of his small, fairy-sized rucksack. Even with wings, it was a long journey here.

 

“Indeed, Brother Viseli,” replies the woman, nodding her head as they walk down through the corridor, made up of gnarled, hardwood trees that have bent and bowed themselves to form a corridor. “Welcome to our home.”

 

They have not been grown by a gardener to take such rare shapes. Instead, it seems as if the trees have been brought to heel by a force greater than their natural tendencies. They grow straight and press their trunks against each other, weaving their branches and boughs tightly above their heads, leaving only gaps through which moonlight can shine.

 

“Do you think we will be involved?” he asks.

 

“It is not for me to say, Brother Viseli,” replies the other member of the Witches’ Sect as they reach the end of the corridor. Large trunks block their way. Viseli knocks and the trees open apart a moment later, their roots pulling free and lashing away to the side like disturbed vipers rousing from a nest. The entrance opens as the two trees move apart, allowing them to enter inside. “You must ask her.”

 

Sitting there, bathing in the glow of full moonlight, is a woman, draped over a large toadstool, three times the size of a human, staring up towards the sky.

 

The trees close in behind them.

 

Viseli stares at the witch, a being of the old world. He serves them, as he has done all of his life. Witches are powerful, odd creatures that are difficult for an outsider to truly understand.

 

The nature of their magic makes them… eccentric.

 

Blinking, the woman on the toadstool turns her gaze towards them, her springtide eyes shining over the fairy who has come from far, far away to seek her guidance.

 

“I serve,” says the fairy, lowering his head as her eyes fall on him.

 

---

 

 

“It is my duty to go,” says the goblin, the strongest amongst them, as he looks at the matriarch who governs their tribe.

 

She is a dryad, a wood-mother. All goblin tribes live in symbiosis with such a creature. They protect the forest for her, and she, in turn, guides and nurtures their tribe, given a goblin’s short lifespan. The dryads act as a form of living generational memory amongst the short-lived species that are goblins.

 

“Your duty lies with your people, Grul,” says the wood-mother, sitting there on a nest of brambles and thorns that do not bother her. “Look around you,” she says, gesturing to the caverns. Grul turns his head and looks as she instructs, his eyes wandering along the many steep, inward facing cliffs of the underground cave-system that makes up the largest home of goblin-kind in the world. Hundreds of faces watch from many alcoves. “What do you see?”

 

“I see my people,” replies Grul, examining their expressions carefully. “They are scared of the hissing night.”

 

“Yes, Grul,” replies the wood-mother. “They are frightened children, and children need both their fathers and their mothers in times like this,” says the dryad. “I have but two arms and there are so many scared children. I need you here.”

 

The goblin-chief looks up towards her. “No,” he replies. “In times like this, it is my role as chief not to hide, but to fight the monsters that come for my kin.”

 

“This is not a monster you can fight, Grul,” replies the dryad. “This is something beyond a goblin.”

 

The goblin chief shakes his head. “My fight is not to kill the monster,” he explains. “It is to show my children that they do not hide from such things,” he points at her. “Not in the bosom of their mother and not in the shadow of their father. Goblins fight.”

 

The dryad tilts her head, playing with a strand of long, green hair that is indistinguishable from the thorns and briers she sits nested in.

 

“Your father died a foolish death and so will you,” she explains.

 

“Yes,” says Grul, nodding to her. “And I will do it with a smile, as he did. I learned the lesson he had to teach,” explains the chief. “I am glad it was his lesson I learned as a boy, and not yours.”

 

Murmurs move through the cavern. Even for the chief of the clan, to disrespect the wood-mother like this is… unprecedented. The wood-mother is a holy creature, loved and cherished in all goblin society.

 

“You cherish safety and survival too much, wood-mother. Your children waste away from lack of sunlight and meat, all in your effort to keep them safe.” He points behind himself. “The bodies of each generation are smaller and weaker than those of the one before. We are withering.”

 

“Are you accusing me of being unfit?” asks the dryad, narrowing her eyes. “Of being unloving?”

 

The goblin chief shakes his head and turns away. “I am accusing you of loving too much. You are smothering us,” he says, walking away. “I am going to fight the demon,” says the goblin. “You may choose a new chief. I will not be returning,” says the man, as he walks down through the caverns.

 

Several others wordlessly walk after him, as a group of them split off from the mass of goblins and embark on the journey in pursuit of the shadow that hangs heavy over the world.

 

---

 

 

The slime hops across the meadow, lowering itself down as it lours on the hunt.

 

To hide itself, the little green monster condenses its glibbery mass, compacting itself down flat as it creeps through the long-grasses of the Big-Green, the big meadow, the biggest of meadows. It is a meadow so big and so green that no other name could exist for it other than the one it has.

 

— A vibration comes, moving through the slime’s highly sensitive body.

 

The slime stops, sensing the movements of prey nearby.

 

It focuses, its cells coming together at the front of its body to form an optical unit from which it can see.

 

A yellow eye forms, building itself out of the rest of the slime’s oozy, green mass.

 

Slowly, it slithers and crawls around a particularly tall frond of grass, looking at its meal to be.

 

— A butterfly sits on a flower, flapping its cream-colored wings softly as it rests.

 

Perfect.

 

The slime pools itself together into a slowly rising, highly compacted flat bubble and then, after a tense second, releases the tension it had built in its own gelatinous body to hop forward in a violent strike!

 

Sundew kissed slime hurtles through the air, wet, acidic ooze shining in the dayglow as it launches towards the unsuspecting butterfly about to be consumed.

 

— Something pops up in the world, separating the slime from its prey.

 

It slams against the odd, unnatural surface and glibbers down its smooth body, dripping to the soil in angry confusion.

 

 

The butterfly flies away.

 

Raging, the bubbling, angry, hungry slime looks at the thing that has appeared. A window. It does not understand windows. It hates the window.

 

The angry slime inflates itself, growing larger and larger as it takes in air into its body in order to make itself look larger than it is to scare off this new, dangerous threat.

 

— Inflated, the slime wobbles and dances threateningly.

 

The window vanishes.

 

VICTORY.

 

The slime deflates, letting out all the air now that the danger has left. But what a waste. The butterfly got away. This was meant to be a good hunt.

 

It looks around the area, its single yellow eye, the size of a pebble, floating in its goo as it tries to find a new meal.

 

Somehow, its vision turns towards the west and it stares towards the horizon. It feels like…

 

Hmm…

 

The little slime does not know what it feels, actually. It isn’t exceptionally intelligent. But it feels like something is pulling it that way. It’s pulling it towards the west.

 

Instinct, perhaps?

 

It narrows its one eye and then flops down into a puddle as it starts crawling that way.

 

It feels like there is something to eat that way. Something very, very far away. But it is something very big to eat, so it must be worth the journey, right?

 

It moves, wobbling and globbling and wiggling and jiggling as it crawls towards the west, towards the hunger that beckons it, towards what may be the biggest butterfly to ever exist.

 

— At least it hopes so.

 

---

 

 

“Where are we, Zac?” asks Ruhr, looking out ahead of herself.

 

The grass squishes, soft soil compressing beneath her boot, releasing a wet, quenched squelching sound.

 

There were many casualties on the last floor and many more wounded. The illusion has done its damage, and those who remain are, at the very least, drained. But they threw away all of their food and so, recovery is only found by sleep, of which there is little to be had as the march continues.

 

The assault is a wreck.

 

Ruhr looks around herself.

 

They had been in the Demon-King’s castle a moment ago. But now, they’ve entered the next floor, and it's just... a strange, open grassland.

 

She knows that she’s underground, but she can see the blue sky if she looks up. She knows that she’s trapped in a dank, rotting, hot hole beneath the surface. However, the calm air that she feels is warm and soft, and it touches her face, wicking away the sweat and grime from before with its gentle presence. She knows that she’s in the heart of the Demon-King’s horrific castle, but… from where she stands, she and everyone else are simply in the midst of a vast meadow, green, lush, and pleasant.

 

“Hell,” replies Zacarias, continuing to march forward. She walks on next to him, looking over her shoulder as the group continues to march. Vibrant, verdant grass crunches beneath his soiled boots. The others are still moving, but they certainly don’t look happy about it.

 

“You think this is like the last floor?” she asks, looking suspiciously at the grass. “Another illusion? Some mind game?”

 

Zacarias nods. “Have you noticed?” he asks. “There are barely any monsters,” says Zacarias. “Since we got here, the only real danger has either been some trick or us hurting ourselves.”

 

Ruhr thinks for a while. “Why do you think that is?” she asks.

 

Zacarias walks on for a time, all of them, the two hundred and some who remain, march out of file and rank, simply moving forward like people wandering the desert. “We brought our own,” says Zacarias.

 

“Zac…” says Ruhr, lowering her voice as she walks next to him. But she doesn’t say anything after that, despite having something to say.

 

The truth is that, well… the truth is that she’s just not confident in this mission. The dungeon is ten floors deep. They’re at floor six, and they’ve lost more than half of their men. They have no food and no water, and, even if it’s hardly been a day, this kind of work makes one thirsty and hungry. Wounds, even if healed with magic, still require sustenance to properly mend. Lost blood must be replaced. They’re burning candlelight and the night feels like it’s going to last a while longer.

 

She thinks she can make it to floor ten. She can reach him. She’s strong enough and, come hell or high-water, she’s taking Zac with her. The others she can’t vouch for. But…

 

“I’m still game if you change your mind,” she says. “You and me. We’ll make it out of here if you want to cut all of this out of our lives,” suggests Ruhr. “We’ll break for another continent where nobody knows us. We could make a good adventuring team.”

 

“We met a day ago,” replies Zacarias.

 

“So?” asks Ruhr. “I like you. Consider yourself lucky, given your shitty attitude, Zac,” says the sorceress. “Congratulations, you’re on team-Ruhr now.”

 

“What an honor,” replies Zacarias, looking around the grasslands. “Thank you, but no. This is it for me,” he says, looking at her. “I won’t stop you from leaving. But I’m staying here, no matter what.”

 

Ruhr tsks, turning her head. “Really?” asks the sorceress. “You’d just make your best-friend sad like that by dying in a hole like some idiot?”

 

“Best friend?” asks Zacarias. “I feel like this is all escalating a little,” remarks the man. “Again. We basically met yesterday.”

 

“We sure did, Z-man,” replies Ruhr, punching his arm. “You and me against the world.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway, if not for the treasure of your beating heart — that is me -” begins Ruhr.

 

“Excuse me?” he asks.

 

“— Then isn’t there anything else?” she asks. “No family outside waiting for you to come back? No star-crossed lover, waiting for your heroic return?”

 

“No,” replies Zacarias. “They died,” he says. Ruhr stops, wincing. Zacarias looks over his shoulder at her. “I’m staying here. No matter what,” says the man, as he keeps on walking without her.

 

She stares at him leaving and then looks back at the marching band of soldiers.

 

Shit.

 

Zacarias is so good at keeping himself together that she didn’t even think that he had anything like that happen when the Demon-King ascended. Don’t royal-guards keep their families in the safe-zone of the castle? Ah, hell.

 

“Keep it moving!” she snaps at the soldiers, receiving only deathly glares and quiet curses in muttered breaths in return. “You there, in the back!” she says, pointing at a slow woman with a funny gait, shambling along. The elf turns her head in an… odd way to look at Ruhr. “Pick up the pace!” The elf nods and moves faster. Ruhr can only assume she hurt her leg. But they don’t have time to slow down for anyone, hurt or not. She’ll just have to shamble faster or get left behind.

 

It is what it is.

 

The river-sorceress stares back at Zacarias, feeling a little bad about her attitude now the other day, when he told her to rein herself in a bit.

 

‘Families died today’ — that sentence of his hits a little different now.

 

“Fuck…” hisses Ruhr. She might have blown it.

 

The woman rubs the back of her head and then runs off to the head of the line again.

 

“You sure do change your mind a lot,” says Zacarias.

 

Ruhr wipes a strand of hair out of her face. “I wasn’t leaving, Zac. I was corralling the useless eaters we brought with us.” She looks at him, wondering if she should say something else to smooth things out a bit more. She doesn’t want Zacarias to hate her for being an asshole. She doesn’t get many people who spend this much time with her. But she can't think of anything that won’t make it worse, so she just turns her head forward and quietly keeps on walking.

 

Maybe, for a change, this is the better move.

 

But what the hell is this floor?

 

There’s just… grass.

 

No monsters, no spells, no traps, just grass.

 

Ruhr looks down at it, pressing against the ground with her boot. It’s firm but wet, like a meadow that has been rained on.

 

She doesn’t get it.

 

---

 

 

“Take your time to adjust,” says the woman who helped her here to an ornate, well furnished chamber. Byblos looks at Cartouche. “The mindset and the body take a moment to adjust to,” she explains.

 

Byblos looks around the room that belongs to a prince of some kind, given its dressings. She doesn’t feel like she should be sitting here.

 

“What am I?” she asks, repeating her question from before, looking at the dancer. The woman has a body similar to hers, but it still retains the unique definitions that mark a dancer’s lifestyle. Supple muscles, lean tones, and an elegance to all movements, even those outside of the dance. Her own body has changed too, but it still resembles the one she carried in life in a way.

 

“Ready,” replies Cartouche. She looks back up towards the dancer, who is leaving. “Find me when you’ve adjusted. We’ll get you situated with a kitchen.”

 

“Wait,” says Byblos. “Should… should I just wait here?” she asks. “What if someone comes in?”

 

Cartouche blinks, looking back at her. “What?”

 

Byblos shrugs. “I mean… you know, it’s a little awkward.”

 

“Why?” asks the dancer. “It’s your room. Who’s supposed to come in here?” she asks, staring at her in confusion. She shakes her head. “You’re confused. The change takes a moment to process. Take a few minutes and then we’ll get started,” she says, closing the door.

 

The cook sits there on the edge of the bed, looking around the room.

 

‘Her room’?

 

It’s bigger than the entire tavern she was working in. Her eyes wander up the stone walls and exotic tapestries that line them, falling onto the fantastical carved chests of drawers and tables. The bed is as large as her old entire room was. She looks behind herself towards the almost comical mattress. She stands up and starts walking across it, taking several steps before she even reaches the middle, where she flops down and stares at the ceiling, trying to understand what her life is at the moment.

 

“Wait a minute…” says Byblos, narrowing her eyes.

 

She realizes that the old owner of the tavern still owes her money. She didn’t get paid before she died.

 

The cook sighs, closing her eyes.

 

---

 

 

Tizalo walks on, walking at the back of the troop as the death-march continues. Of his house, he’s the last one left. All of his compatriots and brothers died either before the entrance or in the first few floors. He groans, rubbing his face. What a mess this is. But they’re about half-way there, so there’s still a chance.

 

They just need to clear these last few floors and then kill the Demon-King.

 

That’s not so bad, right?

 

He looks around at the wounded and hurt who are marching just ahead of him. He’s in good shape. He’s just slow by nature, that's all, given his size and lumbering stature.

 

There’s only one person worse off than anyone else.

 

He looks behind himself.

 

Sir Alencia, a fellow knight from another noble house. He knows her. She’s a prideful woman, an elf, proud of her blood. But she works for it too. She’s one of the hardest training nobles he knows of. He looks back at the elf, who must have hurt her leg pretty badly. The way she’s shambling on, it seems like it must be cleanly broken somewhere below the knee. But she doesn’t say a single word or utterance of complaint. He can only imagine how badly it has to hurt. But there she is, just… going on and keeping her face as calm and neutral as possible, to not startle the others who don’t even turn back to look at her.

 

Even if she’s last in line and with a failing body in what he can only imagine is horrific pain, she marches forward, resolutely, silently. A true noble. A true knight. He can’t help but admire that.

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“Sir Alencia,” says Tizalo, looking down at the small, hurt elf who looks up his way with sharply shining emerald eyes that betray not a hint of pain. “Forgive my lack of decorum,” he says. “Please, allow me.” Tizalo, not able to watch this heart-breaking sight any longer, bends down and picks up the elf in her full set of armor and carries her before himself with ease. “It will stay between us. I promise,” he says, marching on.

 

Sir Alencia looks up at him as he carries her, and then rests her head against his chest, closing her eyes.

 

“Thank you,” says Sir Alencia’s voice.

 

She smiles, and that makes him happy.

 

---

 

 

What the hell.

 

“Zac. What are we doing?” asks Ruhr.

 

They’ve been walking for hours now. But nothing seems to change.

 

The grasslands just go on for ever and ever. Nothing changes. The end doesn’t come any closer. The terrain never alters itself. It’s all just fucking grass.

 

“Walking in circles,” says Zacarias, looking around them. “We’re missing something.”

 

“Yeah, a fucking door,” remarks Ruhr, looking around the area for… anything. All she sees is them and the grass. She sighs, rubbing her face. They’re overlooking something. There’s a puzzle or some trick here.

 

She looks down at the ground, staring at the grass, swaying in the wind.

 

…The wind?

 

“Zac…” says Ruhr, staring at the round. “Do you feel any wind?”

 

“No, why?” replies Zacarias.

 

“Then why is the fucking grass moving?”

 

Zacarias and her look down at the ground. The grass all around them sways, rippling as if they were in the midst of a spring gale. But no such wind finds its way to their bodies. She looks over to the side. “Who has nature magic?” asks Ruhr.

 

A soldier steps forward, lifting her hand. Ruhr nods to the ground. “Dig us a hole,” she orders. The dark-elf nods, looking down at the ground and holds her hands out in front of herself.

 

 

Magic of an amber hue leaves the dark-elf’s hands, twisting into a spiral that reaches the grass and then spins around in a circle, burrowing its way down through the soil that begins to move, disturbed.

 

It is disturbed not by the displacement of magic, moving away sediment and rock. Instead, it disturbed by the conniptions of twisting, wiggling meat.

 

A hole is burrowed into the ground, perfectly cylindrical, and pieces of wet slosh fall down into the new pit, organs and guts and bones, leaking marrow. There is no soil. There is no rock. Everything that she can see below is made up out of hundreds of brown, featureless forms that are the color of soil. They look like people, but their legs are fused together into long, singular appendages. Their arms are grown into their sides. Their faces are mouth-less and eyeless, having been covered in featureless, smooth skin.

 

The human worms wriggle beneath their feet, composing not only a part of the soil, but rather, all of it.

 

There is nothing below except for thousands and thousands of such human-worms, slipping and sliding over each other, rubbing their featureless, blanket bodies over one another as they dance their contorted, twisting dance.

 

The grass ripples, not because of the wind.

 

It moves and waves because of the movements of thousands of writhing bodies, just beneath their feet.

 

Ruhr steps behind Zac and vomits as the smell of animal mating and slime rises up from the gore filled pit that other bodies flop down into.

 

The soil sinks in, the grass caves into a sinkhole of sorts as the layer of human-worms where they stand fall down and flop into the hole, causing an incline. It happens in a second. The grass gives way, and the dark-elf who cast the spell slips as the ground lowers itself down and she screams, falling into the pit.

 

A thousand writhing, wriggling worms fall down on her, crushing her body and screams.

 

Zacarias steps back, yanking Ruhr with him. But she doesn’t let that stop her from purging.

 

It's all too much.

 

The vomit runs down the incline, over the bony meat-sacks, covering a few of them in glistening sheen, until they burrow and rub it off on the others around them

 

“If I had to guess,” says Zacarias. “I’d say the door out of here is down beneath them,” explains the man.

 

Ruhr nods in agreement with his idea, and then she violently vomits a second time for good measure.

 

“Casters! Forward!” barks guardsman Zacarias, starting the orders to blast a hole down through the floor that is made up entirely of an endless sea of bone-filled worms that may have once been people.

 

All that separates her feet from them, is a thin layer of grass.

 

---

 

 

“I’m ready,” says Byblos, having left her room after taking her time to let her mind and body settle.

 

Despite the fact that she died and that her old life is just… over, she thinks that she’s adapted very well, honestly. This new life of hers already feels like she’s been in it for as long as she can remember. It feels like a pair of comfortable boots that have been resting in the closet for most of a year, only to be taken out again in the following winter — fitting perfectly.

 

The dancer, Cartouche, nods. “Okay,” says the woman. “Let’s get you situated, then.”

 

---

 

 

Swain crumples the ball of paper up and throws it to the side, striking the head of a statue that, for some reason, has eyes that move. The paper ball hits its head and then rolls off onto the floor.

 

Snarling, he reaches over with his massive claws to a terrified ghost and snatches another sheet of paper from the stack.

 

There’s some collection of words he’s trying to find. But he just… can’t.

 

Even as the horrible Demon-King, it seems that the power of artistry is something that can’t be mastered by magic and force. It must be practiced, and there must be a pinch of muse and a hint of fate involved in the creation of everything.

 

He thinks, looking around the hall.

 

But he finds no inspiration here.

 

What did he usually do, as a human? When he needed inspiration, what did he do to find it?

 

He went places, he remembers. He would… have things happen, or he would make things happen, and those would inspire him to find his prose. He would think of…

 

— The Demon-King narrows his eyes.

 

He would think of her and the words would flow to him like polished gold sliding over cream-toned cashmere.

 

But doing so now does not bring him the words he wants.

 

He needs something else to watch. The humans are too miserable to watch any longer, and the thought of thinking about her more makes him sick to his core.

 

 

He lifts his massive hand, holding it out over the throne room. The terrified ghost, holding his paper, ducks, hiding beneath the stack of pages.

 

 

The throne-room rumbles, quaking as energy surges through it from his seat of power. The hundreds of statues, some standing fully by themselves, others half-submerged in the stones of the floor, begin to shake and then come to move.

 

Stones crumble and crack as they twitch and spasm, like freshly animated undead, and then, a moment later, turn to face each other.

 

 

 

Their horrified, screaming, haunted faces never change. Their mouths hang agape. Their eyes are wide and full of nightmares.

 

They form pairs and begin to dance a mockery of a waltz around the throne-room, the heavy, clunking steps of those with legs walking on the faces of those who lie half-submerged in the rock.

 

 

The Demon-King lets out a half-amused grunt and leans back on his throne, watching them dance — sickly puppets, fake things pretending to be alive, pretending to have souls.

 

Music fills the air as the ghosts begin to play their somber melody and a purple-clad figure, draped in gold and soft fabrics, gracefully moves through the mass of twisting stone and rock.

 

Swain watches as Cartouche, having felt her presence being needed without a word being said, joins not in the waltz, but rather, dances her own dances amidst the anarchy of it. The gallu spins and moves with a grace that is otherworldly; it is far beyond the movements of anything else he has ever seen, no matter how often he watches it. Like a single snowflake at midnight, she captures the full radiance of attention to herself as she moves — everything else, all of them, are just part of the backdrop.

 

 

Captivating.

 

To think that such beautiful grace could have been hidden beneath the filth of humanity — A shining jewel buried in sludge.

 

The Demon-King watches her dance and listens to the ghosts playing their song to guide the demon-waltz, before he then looks down at his blank piece of paper, trying to understand what words should be written upon its surface.

 

Even he, powerful as he might be, struggles at the feet of the titan of beauty. It is so daunting, so large and massive, that he can only stand in its shadow and hope to recreate its image — like an artist with a reference that is too large for his canvas, he can simply only capture a tiny piece of it.

 

---

 

 

Power roars from her hands as she presses the serpent made out of surging water down into the soil. The roaring monstrosity crushes and eats thousands of them, the worms. However, the soggy ground wherever they go missing sinks, creating crevices and sinkholes all over the floor as the worms either shift or vanish under the spells. Footing becomes more and more dangerous, as more and more slippery holes appear. She doesn’t know how many people have already fallen in and vanished beneath the crushing mass of bodies, but certainly a few.

 

She hates this.

 

Vomit stains the corners of her mouth as she screams, power pressing out through her fingers as her spell intensifies, ripping a gash through the land that is filled with water. She doesn’t have anything in particular to say with her scream. It just feels like the right thing to do.

 

— A hole breaks down below. Down below the grass is the layer of worms, and there, down below them, she sees a gap, a break of light. “ZAC!” she screams.

 

Zacarias looks, seeing it too, and holds out his hands.

 

“BARRIERS!” calls Zacarias out into the crowd of soldiers. A few priests step forward and lift their hands.

 

An instant later, a rectangular, vertical wall of prismatic holy magic appears, like a solid pane of glass that has been shoved through the ground. Then two more, forming a triangular shaft that leads from the top of the grasslands all the way down through to the light below.

 

“MOVE!” yells Ruhr, waving to the pit. “Go!” The soldiers look down, somewhat unsure.

 

 

A cloud of soft magic appears at the bottom of the pit. Ruhr grabs the first man she can reach, yanking him forward and throwing him into the hole. “GO!” she orders, as the man tumbles into the pit, screaming. Others, seeing him land down safely below, jump down after him. Ruhr stands there with the priests and Zacarias, as the soldiers move.

 

“You!” barks Ruhr, pointing at a massive giant of an orc. She looks at the man, holding a limp, dead body in his arms. She recognizes the corpse as the elf with the bad leg who had been at the back of the line. It looks like she didn’t make it. Ruhr shakes her head. “Let her go. It’s over. She’s gone.”

 

The orc with a hurt leg looks at her and then down at the dead elf that he’s carrying.

 

Without saying anything, he sets the corpse of Sir Alencia down and then shambles into the hole after the others.

 

Ruhr shakes her head, grabbing Zac and jumping down the hole, together with the three priests.

 

As they fall, she watches through the glassy walls as thousands of wet, slimy, featureless bodies gyrate, pressing themselves against the sleek surfaces and each other. Covered in slime, mucus, water, and the gore of those they’ve crushed with their mass, the bone-worms ungulate and release the stink of the pressing of never-ending flesh from themselves.

 

Ruhr falls down onto the cloud, glad that Zacarias in his armor doesn’t land on her, as they reach the area below, the next floor of the Demon-King’s castle.

 

She doesn’t think it can get much worse than this.

 

---

 

 

Abydos stands in the graveyard, looking up towards the top of the shaft as he simply stays there, his brush in his hand and his shadow in his heart, as he waits for inspiration to strike him.

 

He has been tasked with creating the next section of the castle, floors eleven to twenty.

 

But his muse hasn’t found him yet, and he refuses to deliver a piece of sub-par quality.

 

He will stand here and wait until it comes to him — the idea.

 

It always does.

 

The painter rubs the old noose scar around his neck.

 

Sometimes art just needs a little time before you even begin the work.

 

---

 

 

Ruhr wipes her face on her scarf, getting rid of any leftover vomit that might hamper her credibility as a professional.

 

Floors one to six have been a shitshow. She can’t help but wonder what joy seven is going to bring her. The Demon-King is a real artist.

 

She rolls her eyes, if only for her own thoughts.

 

“What was that?” Zacarias, watching her.

 

“Nothing,” replies Ruhr, looking around the area. “And, what layer of hell are we in now?” asks the sorceress.

 

Zacarias looks around the floor. It looks like a perfectly normal stone corridor. There’s nothing wrong with it. Which, of course, after just before, isn’t a promising thing to think about.

 

Ruhr looks above her head, watching as the magical shields fade away. The worms all press themselves together, sealing themselves in and recreating the layer of ‘dirt’ above their heads.

 

“Seven,” replies Zacarias. “If I remember how to count.”

 

Ruhr nods. “I never went to school, you know?” she asks, looking around at the regathering soldiers. They lost a few again. “So you’ll have to do all the numbers for me when we get rich.”

 

“And look at you now,” replies Zacarias. “At the top of the world.”

 

She doesn’t bother turning around, simply lifting her arm and bending her elbow to light thud her fist against his chestplate. “That’s right, servant-boy,” says Ruhr. “Now which way do we go?” she asks.

 

The room is just a long, wide, and very tall corridor that goes in two directions. It goes left and, dramatically enough, it also goes right. In the middle, against the wall, is a fountain, large and ornate, and full of trickling water.

 

— Much the same, the room is filled with crying.

 

Ruhr blinks, turning her head to look at a soldier who has completely fallen apart. The man seems to have hit his limit and is holding his head, sniffling. But he isn’t alone. Others have, in similar fashion, finally lost their composure. “Zac. Have these people ever been in a fight?” she asks. “I’ve seen children who were more put together than this.”

 

“Outside of a white-glove slap to the face, no,” replies Zacarias. He looks at her. “You have to understand that these are all ceremonial soldiers.”

 

“Mhm,” replies Ruhr.

 

“Not an ounce of conviction in them,” replies Zacarias.

 

Ruhr groans. This is hopeless. These people – she’s starting to wonder if they really serve a point, apart from acting as meat-shields to get her where she needs to be.

 

Actually… that may be true, now that she thinks about it. After all, she is the important one here.

 

“HEY!” yells a voice from the side, dragging someone away. “Don’t fucking drink it, idiot!” he snaps, pulling his cohort away from the fountain. “Do you want to die?!”

 

Ruhr looks over towards them and then steps towards the fountain, looking at it. It’s massive. It reminds her of the fountains behind the dungeon-gates in many large city plazas, and, inside of it, down at the bottom of the water, rest many coins.

 

She looks to the side at a priest, who stands before the fountain with folded hands in prayer.

 

After a moment, the man finishes and then digs into his pocket, pulling out a coin that he flips into the fountain.

 

— A soft ripple emanates outward from the disturbance, each tiny movement of the water reminding Ruhr that she had been very specific about her orders to not touch a single god-damned thing. But nobody listens to her.

 

“I want this to be over,” says the priest, making his wish.

 

Then, the water changes.

 

Ruhr jumps, yanking the priest to the side as a silhouette emerges. Despite the impossibility of it, the water being an ankle deep at best, a large, graceful, fairy-like woman of impossible beauty emerges from the spring, her hands held at her side, golden hair running down her wet body. Gasps and confused murmurs run through the soldiers as they stare at the divine presence that is foreign to the horrors they have seen here.

 

“Oh wanderer, good and true,” says the fairy of the fountain. “I have heard your wish,” she says. With her left hand, she gestures down the corridor. “If you take this path, you may leave the Demon-King’s castle,” she instructs. Murmurs. Her other hand rises, gesturing towards her right. “If you follow this path, you may find the Demon-King, if that is what you wish.”

 

The priest yanks Ruhr’s hand off of himself, rushing back towards the fountain and grasping its edge. “REALLY?!” he asks, his eyes going wide as he stares at the glowing spirit.

 

The woman in the fountain clasps her hands together before her heart, smiles a kind smile, and nods. “Your wish is paid for.”

 

The man stumbles, stuttering. “T- thank you! THANK YOU!” he yells, bowing his head to the fairy.

 

And then, without a word to the other soldiers, without anything resembling a departure, the priest shoves Ruhr out of the way and sprints towards the right, towards what is promised to be an exit from the Demon-King’s castle.

 

No…

 

Ruhr’s eyes go wide.

 

That bastard.

 

She can’t turn back to the soldiers fast enough to watch them all ripping through their bags and possessions, handing out coins to everyone around them. Soldiers storm the fountain, tossing coins in one after the other, the water splashing and churning from the hundreds of coins that fly in, many people throwing more than one to make several wishes.

 

This doesn’t add up at all.

 

“YOU IDIOTS!” yells Ruhr into the crowd. “Do you really think the Demon-King just built a second door down here?!” she screams, grabbing a man on his shoulder. He strikes her arm away, pushing her back and runs to the fountain. “ZAC!” she yells, looking at Zacarias, who is standing there. “They’re deserting! Stop them!”

 

The man watches them and then shakes his head. “It’s too wild. We can’t stop them now.”

 

“What?! Use your spell to tie them down!” she orders, grabbing his chestplate to shake him.

 

“No,” replies Zacarias. “That worked before because they were divided and scared,” he says. The man nods his head. “If we get in the way of this stampede, we’ll be trampled.”

 

Ruhr watches in horror as more people than she can count run off down towards the right, sprinting as fast as they can. Some in their groups, some alone — all desperate to escape.

 

“This isn’t right, Zac,” she says. “There’s no way this is legit,” hisses the river-sorceress. “How were there coins in the fountain?!” She yells, raising her voice to a shrill shriek. “WE WERE THE FIRST ONES HERE! WHY WERE THERE ALREADY COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN?!” screams Ruhr, as loud and as desperately as she can.

 

— But nobody listens.

 

The water comes to a rest, as does the sound of boots, as most of them have left.

 

Ruhr stands there, feeling it now again – that bad feeling.

 

She looks back at the fairy in the fountain, who, seeing as her services are no longer needed, closes her eyes and sinks back into the water with no wishes left to grant. She vanishes beneath its surface, her golden hair swimming atop it for only a moment, like fronds of entangling sea-grass and then, those too, disappear.

 

Ruhr stands there, looking at what’s left.

 

Zacarias, her and… maybe two or three dozen people.

 

That’s it.

 

That’s all that’s left.

 

Everyone else… they just…

 

She looks back over her shoulder, towards the right. They all just… left. Just like that. What the hell?

 

A hand grips her shoulder and she looks at Zacarias, who holds out a coin for her to take. “FUCK YOU!” she screams at him, slapping the coin out of his hands. It rolls across the stones, clattering against the wall and then coming to a rest on the floor.

 

Zacarias looks at Ruhr and nods as he walks past her, placing a hand on her shoulder as he heads towards the left.

 

“Now we can be friends,” he says.

 

Ruhr hisses through her teeth, watching him go. “Asshole!”

 

“Takes one to know one,” replies Zacarias, walking past a large orc with a hurt leg. He looks at the man and then nods, thumping a fist against his chestplate once as he keeps walking. The orc nods back.

 

Ruhr rips off her hat, biting into it so that its fabric muffles her screams, before she collects the people who are left and they all head down deeper, towards floor nine of the Demon-King’s castle.

 

At least they’re almost there.

 

They’re so close.

 

---

 

 

He stands there, legs wide and his hands held in a frame before his eyes, as he tries to capture the jubilance of life. He’s almost there. He can feel it.

 

His eyes stare up at the shaft of the Demon-King’s castle, leading up towards the surface. He catches the glimmers of beautiful stars in the air.

 

It starts with just one simple one at first. But then more falling stars come, crashing down towards the graveyard, screaming and twisting as they fall in free-fall through the air, coming down to crack their bones and skulls on the rocks and the walls. Some of them land on spiked posts, tearing them in half and leaving a ribbon of entrails in their wake. Others bash their heads against the walls, cracking them clean off of their shoulders with teeth flying through the air.

 

An odd hundred or so people hurtle to their deaths, having found an exit to the Demon-King’s castle.

 

– Technically speaking.

 

When making a wish, one must often be very careful with one’s wording.

 

The painter smiles as red ink surrounds him, pooling at his feet. He bends down, dipping his brush into the viscera, before he sets to work, ready now to give avatar to this beautiful sensation that he feels welling in his chest.

 

---

 

 

 

 

Ah.

 

Excellent timing. The Demon-King looks on, pleased, as the window appears. Abydos seems to have completed his task.

 

Swain looks down at his poem, which he is in the middle of writing.

 

He’d love to look at the humans' faces right now — the intruders’.

 

Maybe he will?

 

He likes to imagine the contortion of shapes and features present on them as they come to realize just how far away they really are from their goal.

 

But then, the Demon-King releases the thought from his mind. Instead, he watches the waltz continue and then writes down his musings in the form of a poem. The smell of food is in the air.

 

After all, this is much more pleasing.

 

Humans will always be miserable, no matter what. But beauty…

 

— It is fleeting.

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