Who Watches the Watchers?
It's been a while, so I have a character list at the bottom in case anyone forgot names. I think I'll make this a feature of the chapters from now on, unless everyone really dislikes it.
The green eye charged straight at him while the red one strafed him, bombarding him with lasers from above. As Cyrus dodged and weaved around them, he couldn't help but feel that there was something terribly wrong with these creatures, in the unnaturally smooth way they moved. Of course, while all of the other boss creatures he had fought were brutally efficient in trying to eviscerate him, they moved like living (or unliving, in Lacrima's case?) creatures but this pair of eyes moved with mechanical efficiency.
The green one seemed determined to try to slam into him when it wasn't generating balls of green fire from its iris, and as it roared by him with all the speed and mass of a train the air reeked of ozone, like he was fighting in the midst of a thunderstorm. The two eyes were a terribly good team, Cyrus had to admit, and it seemed like they were only getting better, his dodges of the green eye sending him into the path of the red eye's lasers, which he couldn't always dodge.
His new armor proved strong enough to hold up, although some of the finer detailing he had made had already started to melt under the fierce assault of lasers and flame. Damn, he had worked hard on that! Of course, he was working much harder to survive right now.
Carefully aiming, he fired an arrow at one of the eyes, only for it to go soaring into the sky. Okay, what the hell? Before he could start to panic, the arrow slammed down into the earth that the eye was hovering over moments before, burying itself deep in the dirt, down to the fletching. With a shrieking sound, like something going through the air too fast, a star struck the ground next to it.
Of course, the twin eyes weren't just going to let him test him weapons out, and he jumped as high as he could to avoid a particularly massive gout of flame. Before he could let out a sigh of relief at not being charbroiled, he felt the air get knocked out of his lungs as the two eyes moved in perfect sync to clothesline him on the chord connecting them, and they tried to entangle him in the thing before managed to escape.
He slammed into the ground, panting, and broke into a sprint while firing arrows from his bow, a terrible cacophony of shrieking and a sound almost like rain on metal as dozens of arrows struck true. Weaving through the forest didn't turn out to be too good of an idea, as the eyes were more than capable of slamming through the trees like a pair of wrecking balls, and it also limited the power of his bow, as arrows and stars struck trees instead of the enemy.
It was harder to fight the creatures once he had to keep track of the chord between them as well as the two actual eyes, but there was a sort of pattern to their attacks, predictable rhythms that let him catch his breath and bombard them with arrows between furious attacks. Finally, he seemed to reach a turning point with the green one, and like his fight with the first eye so long ago, it seemed to start changing physically. However, this time, the entire eye seemed to loose a layer, two great semi-spherical shells that sunk deep into the soil after falling away from the eye.
It became clear now the eye was in fact some sort of complex machine, the metallic skin reflecting the light of the moon as a mouth full of saber like teeth let out a deafening roar. Inside the thing's gullet he could see buzzing saws, and he knew that even his new armor wouldn't save him from getting tenderized by that thing if it could catch him in its mouth.
It let loose a great column of green flame that burnt away the grass to ash, and Cyrus leapt back as the green eye doused everything in front of it with that terrible flame. The eye seemed to get more aggressive after its transformation, but Cyrus had adapted to its patterns the fight seemed to return to normal, other than the occasional bout of flamethrowing from the no longer green eye.
As the eye incinerated more and more perfectly good forest, Cyrus suddenly had an idea, and went back to dodging while waiting for it to cycle through the behavior pattern it seemed to have. It charged at him, again and again, but when it reared up to send more fire at him, Cyrus jumped between it and the other eye, idly noting that he could see a little pilot light inside the machine's maw.
He fell out of the flame's way, but the red eye did not, and it let out a shrill sound like an alarm as the green flames licked its sides, its outer shell burning away and filling the air with the acrid smell of chemicals. This eye didn't have a mouth, but a trapdoor or hatch of some kind opened up where its eye once was, and a massive laser gun of some kind came out.
The lasers were certainly a lot more intense now, but they were still very predictable overall, and Cyrus chipped away at them without taking too much damage, although his breath still felt shallow and he could feel burns where the flames got too close and heated his armor.
Finally, one of the eyes succumbed, and with a terrible metallic sound the eye that shot lasers crumbled into pieces, sending massive chunks of shining metal flying away as a girl fell from where the eye's center would be. Cyrus groaned. Of course, things could never be easy, could they?
He caught the girl and was forced to put away his bow and fight the other remaining eye with just his pistol, as much as his arm ached from the incredible recoil of the weapon. Fighting with a girl in his arms was a lot less glamorous than it seemed, but there was no way he was going to drop her as he fought the other eye, running to avoid the great bursts of flame that baked the ground.
Just as he began to worry that he was going to run out of ammunition, the other eye fell apart in a similar fashion to the first, and he threw his pistol to the ground as he somehow managed to catch the second girl, and now that both of them were next to each other he could see just how similar they were.
They looked remarkable similar to Cthylla, now that he thought about it, to the point that they could pass as triplets, with the same black hair cut short and very similar builds, although (and Cyrus would never say this to their faces when they woke up) they did weigh a bit more than Cthylla did, even with the help of accessories and armor that boosted his strength.
"Hey guys, guess who I found?" Cyrus carefully pushed the door open, trying his hardest with his arms quite full.
Abigail sighed. "Where do they keep coming from, Cyrus?"
"That's the million gold question, isn't it?"
Cthylla seemed especially interested. "Wow, they look just like me! What sort of creatures were they before, you know…"
'They were a lot like you in their monster form too, Cthylla. Two massive eyes, one red and one green, although they were actually mechanical."
The woman they found in the dungeon, Meredith, perked up. "A mechanical creature? Like a robot?"
"I think so. They had natural looking shells, but they were made of metal under the surface. Instead of dissolving like most of the big enemies do, they collapsed into scrap."
Her eyes seemed to glow in the torchlight. "Scrap? Could I go out and get some?"
"I suppose you could get some tomorrow? It's cluttering up the clearing so go right ahead." She was already out the door by Cyrus finished talking. "It's really late, you know!"
Everyone had fallen into a sort of routine regarding the new arrivals that came every time Cyrus fought a major enemy, and even if there were two of them this time it didn't change much. Abigail tsk'd at him as she dressed his wounds, even if it wasn't quite as bad as usual (or maybe Cyrus was just getting used to getting mauled, which was definitely a concerning possibility).
Meredith had fallen asleep after spending all night hauling in robot parts from the thoroughly scorched boss clearing, and Cyrus carefully moved her to her bed while trying not to aggravate his burns. However, over about half a night she managed to haul in huge piles of a strange gleaming metal that seemed to shift between silver and gold depending on what angle you looked at it from. She also bottled a strange bundle of green energy that looked a lot like the pink things from the underground Hallow.
Cyrus decided to wait around and greet the new arrivals when they awoke, but before the two girls stirred Cthylla called him down. "Someone new has shown up!"
Someone new had shown up, a rather tall woman who was dressed in an… interesting style. A massive green top hat that only made her seem taller, and Cyrus' brain immediately provided the word steampunk, even if memories of what the hell a steampunk even is was apparently too much for his mind.
"Greetings, good sir! Would you happen to be the proprietor of this establishment? I wish to inquire about residence in your community."
"Sure, you can stay. What's your name, miss?"
She gave a broad smile. "My name is Judith, and I must say, it's an absolute pleasure."
Before he could reply, he heard Abigail shouting downstairs that the two mysterious girls were waking up, and with a quick "Excuse me, ma'am" he was rushing up the stairs.
Both of the girls stirred from their rests at the same time, and Cyrus could see that the one area where their appearances didn't match was their eyes, one girl with eyes the color of fresh cut grass and the other with eyes like roses. Admittedly, Cyrus might have gotten the two girls mixed up overnight, but it became very clear which girl came from which eye.
Thinking ahead, Cyrus already had two pitchers of water on hand, and both girls drank rapidly. Once they had finished drinking, Cyrus indulged his curiosity. "So, what are you names, if I could ask? I'm Cyrus and the woman who nursed you is Abigail."
The green eyed one spoke up first, "My name is Asta, and my twin's name is Tina."
The Twins proved well enough to eat dinner with them, and everyone decided to make something of an event out of it by having a bonfire. Of course, it was very easy for Cyrus to collect all the wood they would ever need for a fire, but it seemed that he ran out of gel, and although the lack of slimes Visca caused certainly made day to day life less annoying it made getting gel a day trip. Maybe he could ask Visca for some slime, but his brain told him that was probably a bad idea.
"Do you need assistance, sir?" Cyrus nearly jumped when he realized Asta had snuck up on him and was crouching next to him in front of the unlit bonfire. After calming his breathing, he responded.
"Please don't call me sir. Cyrus is fine. I just don't have any gel to really get a fire going."
"A fire, you say?"
"Yeah. A nice big bonfire, and maybe a smaller one for cooking. Of course, the plan goes down the drain if we don't have any fire."
Asta gave him a small smile. "I can help with that." She held up her palm to the massive pile of lumber, and before Cyrus could ask what she was doing, a sort of hole opened up in her palm, and he heard faint clicking, like a lighter, before a burst of green flame sprung forth, catching on the wood almost instantly. Cyrus jumped back, pulling Asta with him, as the green flames leapt up the pile of wood before shifting into a less aggressive form that was a more normal orange color.
"What was that, exactly?"
Asta gave a shrug. "A lighter." Now that he knew what to look for, he could see clearly that her right arm was actually artificial, although even a layman like Cyrus could tell it was a masterwork of prosthetics. The seams were beautifully hidden and the connection to the real body about halfway up the bicep was almost invisible, to the point Cyrus would have never noticed it if he wasn't looking for it.
"I barely even noticed you had a prosthetic!"
"Well, isn't that the end goal of the perfect prosthetic? Unless you want other fun gadgets attached, I suppose."
With their fire starting problem handled, the bonfire and dinner turned out very well, and while fighting the boss monsters was definitely a struggle, moments like this made it worth it, Cyrus thought.
Bea was performing her culinary magic as usual, while Asta, Tina, and Cthylla chattered away over some subject Cyrus couldn't fully catch. Optometry, maybe? Annelida and Medulla were right next to him, simply enjoying each other's company. Visca seemed to be dictating the specifics of her regalia to Lacrima, who was nodding along absentmindedly while watching Andi valiantly attempting to get a rise out of Nissa, who remained stoic.
Once the food had finished cooking, everyone dug in with gusto, although Cyrus was a little transfixed by Veronica, who ate like she was starving. "Uhh, you ok there Veronica? You want seconds?"
"Seconds would be great, dude. My older bro says that I have like, an increased metabolism. Fancy way of saying I need to eat more food. But more space is for food is pretty rad, honestly."
Had they been underfeeding her this entire time? Had they been underfeeding everyone this entire time? Cyrus figured that several extra feet of tail might be a bit of a drain, on a dietary level. He turned to ask Annelida before she gave a dismissive wave of her hand. "Don't worry, it's fine. I eat as much as a normal person, but I could eat a lot more if I want."
Cyrus was still a little surprised, knowing that even though life had gotten routine recently, these girls were still inherently supernatural. Maybe he just couldn't help it, but a pretty face caught his attention a lot more than a tail or something would.
Looking around, Cyrus suddenly noticed that Lacrima's long gloves were a little stained, and now that he thought about it Cyrus realized that she had never show anyone her bare hands, at least as far as he knew. He began to whisper to Annelida and Medulla. "Say, have you ever seen Lacrima's hands? I've literally never seen her without a pair of gloves."
Medulla stroked her chin contemplatively. "Now that I think about it, no. It might be personal, so we should be sensitive and let her decide to tell us when she feels like she's ready."
Suddenly, Andi spoke up from behind them, and Cyrus groaned. "Hey Lacrima, what do you have under those gloves there?"
Lacrima looked up. "Oh, I've never shown you? I guess I haven't. Promise not to freak out, okay?"
Cyrus gave a nod, and leaned forward a little in curiosity. Lacrima pulled off her gloves to reveal bones, as if she simply didn't have muscle or skin past her shoulders. There was a strange sort of ghostly energy surrounding her hands, which Cyrus supposed gave shape to the gloves.
"Wow."
"It's not as much of an inconvenience as you'd think, actually. The magic lets me do all the same stuff a normal arm could, while it also means I don't feel anything if I prick myself with a needle or whatever."
"It works just like a normal hand?"
"Yep! It even feels like one." She placed her hand oh his cheek, and it certainly felt as warm as a real hand even if he could practically see through it. Cyrus began to flush before Annelida pried Lacrima's hand off of his face.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
Lacrima gave a shrug and a knowing grin. "Showing Cyrus that my hands work just like the real deal. I'm sorry, did I offend you?" She looked completely unrepentant.
Annelida's brow furrowed before she scooted over, pressing close to Cyrus' side as Medulla pressed in from the other side. Yes, fighting boss monsters was definitely worth it.
The next day was yet another one of idle relaxation, although no one was really urging Cyrus to go out and pick another fight again. Wandering around, Cyrus couldn't help but notice Visca, who seemed to be in a state of deep contemplation as she idly stroked a little pink slime in her lap.
"Hey Visca!"
"Cyrus, hello." She moved over a little, giving him room to sit.
"I was thinking about what you said when you first got here Visca, about the Queen of Slimes. Do you know anything more about her?"
Visca huffed and looked away. "Of course you come to talk with me about her, it's always about the Queen of the Slimes and never the King! She never gets shit for being a woman, but everyone's alway's like 'King Slime? But you're clearly a lady' like I'm somehow unaware of the fact!"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get you angry."
Visca sighed and rearranged her hair (Cyrus wondered if there was a technical difference between the slime composing her hair and the slime composing her hand, other than color) before shrugging. "It's fine, Cyrus dear. I just get irked that everyone seems to judge me more harshly than her."
"Dear?"
The slime girl's face went from being a translucent blue to a more opaque purple. "Shut up!"
Cyrus had taken to expanding the town slowly after each major fight instead of waiting until they were just about out of space. It gave him something to do in that key period between his recovery from getting mauled and when he was ready for his next mauling.
While he usually wasn't the sort of guy to flatter himself, he did think that he had grown into a better architect as opposed to the half-buried box he made on the first day of his journey here. Thinking back on that first day, Cyrus suddenly realized that it was colder today than it was then, and decided to go ask Lacrima if she could start making him a coat or something. Maybe he could make her a place to work on that sort of thing? It's not like they were lacking for space.
Quite a few more days passed by without much trouble, although Cyrus did make sure to take the occasional trip into the underground or some other far flung biome to keep his skills sharp and to get more materials to fiddle with. Judith and Meredith were still tinkering with the scraps of the Twin Eyes, trying to reforge them into a suit of armor and maybe tools for mining, although Cyrus gathered that the latter wasn't going too well. Curiously, while exploring the underground Hallow he found a strange sort of crystal, one that had the consistency of gelatin, and he decided to keep it.
Whatever change in seasons Cyrus had noticed had truly started in earnest, and the leaves began to grow red, orange, and brown in truly vibrant colors. Now with a ticking clock over their heads everyone had started working in a frenzy, Lacrima taking some of the others under her wing in a rush to produce winter clothing. Food never really was an issue most of the time, but they started stockpiling anyways.
With the passage of time another full moon was fast approaching, and Abigail and Medulla became increasingly convinced that Veronica was a were-creature of some kind, and that they would attack in droves again, perhaps every lunar cycle. Just to be safe, they set a room aside in case Veronica was a little too wild during the full moon, although she seemed so relaxed all the time Cyrus wondered if she really had all those wild animal instincts lurking beneath the surface, or if she just had the surface level ears and tail. (Which were very real, despite all the "testing" tugs that Andi gave them)
Cyrus couldn't really complain about the cold weather when it meant that he had an excuse (well, more of an excuse) for cuddling with Annelida and Medulla. The whole tail thing was actually very neat once you got used to it.
The notebook Garrett left behind really was full of useful information, even if it did make Cyrus want to cry every time he looked at it, and he and Medulla were discussing a part of it in their room once Annelida walked (slithered?) in, Cthylla in tow.
"Hello, was there something that you needed?" Cthylla definitely wasn't the most talkative person in the village, but she was dead silent now and flushed a deep red. Annelida's gave her a quick poke with her tail.
"Well, come on. You worked up the courage to say it to me, didn't you? You can say it to them as well."
Cthylla nodded, pressing her index fingers together in a way that seemed to indicate nervousness (although Cyrus had never seen anyone else do that before. Of course, his brain seemed to provide him with a lot of examples of stuff that he couldn't really remember when he thought about it) before she spoke, stumbling over her words. "Well, I… I'd like to… to join your little group!"
"Group? I mean, you do understand this a romance thing, right?"
"Of course I do! I'm just not going to go out and say 'can I join your menage a trois, please? Make it a household of four?'"
"Didn't you just say that?"
"That's not the point and you know it!"
Before their argument could continue, Medulla stepped in. "That's not the important thing here, is it? Cthylla wants to join our relationship, and I assume that you're fine with it Annelida, considering how you brought her here?" She was answered with an enthusiastic nod. "I'm fine with it as well, so what do you think Cyrus?"
"What?"
"Well, we're not just going to add someone to the relationship without making sure everyone involved was happy with it. Do you want to invite her or not? If you're not…"
Cyrus couldn't believe this was actually happening to him. "Yes. Definitely, definitely yes." Was this a dream?
The hug Cthylla gave him certainly didn't feel like a dream, it felt very real. She had clambered into his lap, and Cyrus' mind was suddenly focused on anything but Garrett's notebook.
Annelida gave him a playful shove. "Well come on, scoot over! We're going to have to squeeze to fit all four of us on this couch. Maybe you'll need to build a new one, Cyrus."
Of course, everyone had learned about the newest addition to Cyrus' little group (his mind helpfully provided the word harem, but he refused to call it that) over dinner, and Cthylla was quickly caught up in a conversation with some of the other girls while Cyrus valiantly tried to eat his as much of his food as he could before someone got the bright idea of feeding him again.
After a few moments of whispering, Bea let out a load groan. "You mean all I had to do was ask?" Before Cyrus could really start processing the consequences of that statement, Judith burst into the room.
"You're late. Is something wrong?"
"Nothing at all! In fact, things are going very well. Meredith and I cooked this up for you." She gave him a heavy machine with a pair of straps attached to one side.
"Is this some sort of backpack?"
Judith's eyes gleamed in the torchlight. "Not a backpack. A jetpack."
A jetpack? Cyrus had to test this out, and it made a much better excuse than usual to bail out of dinner before things got too awkward. Some fresh air could only make his good mood better, Cyrus figured.
Once he had managed to disentangle himself from dinner, he took a walk outside to test his new jetpack, and it worked wonderfully. It really cut down on the time to get the boss arena, and the wide open area gave him a lot of space to practice all sorts of maneuvers he had seen Bea manage when she felt like showing off.
When he stopped to take a quick rest to let the jetpack cool a little, he suddenly realized how chilly it was. It was nowhere near this chilly last night, but the air kept getting colder around him. Oh, it was going to be one of those nights, wasn't it?
Dramatis Personae:
Cyrus: the player character, harem protagonist
Cthylla: ex-Eye of Cthulhu, in relationship with Cyrus
Annelida: ex-Eater of Worlds, in relationship with Cyrus
Medulla: ex-Brain of Cthulhu, in relationship with Cyrus
Visca: still insists on being called King of the Slimes
Bea: ex-Queen Bee
Lacrima: ex-Skeleton, clothier replacement
Andrea/Andi: ex-Wall of Flesh
Asta: ex-Spazmatism
Tina: ex-Retinazer
Nissa: the Dryad
Veronica: the Zoologist
Meredith: the Mechanic
Abigail: the Nurse
Judith: the Steampunker
Roxanne: the Stylist
Sorry about the gap between updates. I decided to include a little character register in case anyone hasn't read in a while. I had considered some sort of Halloween episode, but… yeah. Hopefully, I should be able to get to the Frost Moon by Christmas, and Santa outfits are always fun. Review if you have any criticism/feedback.