Chapter 246: Chapter 246

Has there ever been something that you wanted to say, but you were too afraid to say it?

 

I drift downwards, pulled towards the bottom of the black ocean as the heavy weight of my metal shell pulls me down beneath the crushing depths. As the world shakes and erupts around me, black-water churning as a wall of fire crashes into the surface so far above us, shining like the rays of morning sunlight breaking through the surface of the ocean. I sink further. The current carries me an odd few inches to the left, a foot to the right, but the only constant is my downward movement as I sink.

 

Too afraid, not because you know what’s going to happen if you do. But because you don’t know what’s going to happen if you do. Are those words you want to say going to break something? Are they going to hurt something? Someone? Or just yourself? Will they make the listener angry, which in turn will come back around to yourself when they act out their response? When you get the belt because you asked too many questions. Because you talked back. Because you were bad.

 

The black-water swirls all around the entire floor, as if the entire pool of water itself were becoming one giant, raging whirlpool that lashes me around, my body spinning in violent circles as the world spins and tosses and turns me around and around and around. I don’t really have a sense of dizziness in this body, but it’s still a disorientating sensation as I spiral. All I see is black-water, all around me. Above. Below. Left. Right. It’s in my eyes, in my heart. All I feel is black-water as I watch the lashing tendrils of the sleeping one strike out in the darkness, slashing through the wet in her rage. Each of her tentacles is gigantic, easily as thick around their base as the lance is long and all of them thrash around violently.

 

You might be wondering, guy, how can the great old one be here when she’s on floor… uh… mm… that floor really far downstairs?

 

Really? That’s your question? After everything we’ve seen so far, you’re still going to ask me that?

 

It’s like you aren’t even paying attention, guy. Stop paying attention to only half of my thoughts. Listen to all of them or get out of my head. I don’t have time for someone who is half-assing it. If you don’t mean business, get out. Go. Leave. I mean it. I don’t want you here. You aren’t welcome in my head if you aren’t using your eyes. You’re either with me, or you aren’t.

 

That goes for you too, eyeyoume.

 

The slime gribbles, knowing that I mean her as well.

 

I’m so sick of the dungeon and its metaphors. I’m so sick of the black-water. I wish it would just go away. I wish it would die. I wish it would all just die. Just die and be quiet forever, so that I don’t have to feel it on my skin anymore. So that I don’t have to taste it on my tongue anymore. So that I don’t have to feel it, wiggling around in my thrashing heart like a fistful or worms that got jammed into my veins. It’s disgusting. It’s disgusting and I hate it as much as I hate the hero.

 

A tendril lashes down towards me, the hulking monstrosity that is far beyond my size smashes down into my armor, crashing against me with a heavy thud, as she rages at the disturbance of my presence. My bones crack, my armor dents inward as a tower of meat the size of a giant tree crashes against me, smashing me down towards the muck at the bottom of the ocean. I’m pretty sure my skull is broken in half lengthwise as I feel the top of my head split open.

 

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Lifting a broken hand, I grasp onto her flailing limb that crashes down against me and I lunge forward, biting her as hard as I can. Red water seeps out and the roar that fills the water intensifies, turning into a raging scream as I defy her like the bad child that I am. I bite my teeth down harder, making a point out of it. I feel my front teeth break into jagged shards as I press down tighter, the old things snapping in half from the force of my bite.

 

Adjusting my skull, I bite down harder again a second time, pressing the jagged, broken edges of my teeth into her meat and she screams louder again. I don’t even know if it hurts her, given our size differences. But it’s about the principle of the matter. It’s the fact that I’m telling her in not so many words that I won’t take her shit.

 

I clamp down tighter and I feel a piece of the meat of her tendril come loose and leave as I bite it off entirely. I don’t care if she is my metaphor-mom. That doesn’t mean anything.

 

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

 

In an agonized rage, the giant, towering tentacle lashes back upwards, ripping up towards the surface of the ocean with me still holding on to it, my metal gauntlets digging into her flesh, my broken teeth digging into her flesh, as I gnaw on her like a parasite. Black-water rushes around me as we are dragged towards the surface and then, a moment later, we breach.

 

It only takes a second for the thrashing, musclebound mass to rip us both out of the water, lashing up into the air above like a cracking whip. The world around us seems to shimmer in that time-slowed second, as I fly up and out of the water, propelled by the giant tendril. There seems to be a shimmering around me, a sparkling… a… a… TWINKLE as the water splashes in all directions, glistening like crystal snow as it flies, reflecting off the radiant light of the dungeon as it flies in all directions. As I fly up towards the ceiling of the floor, letting go of the tendril as she propels me up into the air to throw me off.

 

As I soar into the air, spinning like an out of control projectile, my soaking wet cape flying wildly at my side. I feel something grab my fractured skull, like a fist on each side of my broken head that then presses it back together. I feel a ripple push through my body, my limbs splaying out as a wave of energy crashes through me. I feel a voice whispering into my ears, into my head. It tells me that it hates me. It hates me. It hates me and it wants me to go away forever and ever and ever.

 

As I fly, listening to the sound of the dungeon telling me its deepest wishes, I lift my lance as I spiral and slowly begin to fall, feeling the bones of my broken hands come back together, feeling my broken teeth regenerate back into place. I lift my lance as I spiral down towards the hero, his party at his side, his sword in his hand as I crash down towards him like a falling star about to end the world, as all around us lashes the great beast. As all around us lash a thousand tentacles, whipping and slashing through the air, held at bay by his party while he turns to face me and me alone.

 

But that’s his mistake.

 

A slimy hand grips the lance together with mine as we press down towards the hero, as my blade meets his and the world is filled with jubilant sparks, as metal crashes into metal once again.

 

 

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