Part Two
Tono sat primly in her chair. She was staring at her skeletal friend who was sheepishly refusing to meet her gaze. Finally she leaned forward, her silken kimono making a slight scratching sound against the cushion chair she was seated on.
"So. Do we want to address the proverbial elephant in the room?"
One of Momonga's eye fires seemed to brighten slightly, as though indicating a raised eyebrow.
"What, the fact that we seem to be stuck in a world where our characters have not only come to life, but the Guardians we created have also come to life, are apparently rabidly devoted, or the fact that we are physically stuck in these bodies, with no way to get home, and there are probably other side affect that we haven't discovered yet?"
There was a brief pause as Tono began to pick at a loose thread in one of the cushions before she deadpanned.
"Yes."
Momonga snickered, but then became serious, his posture straightening, his eye flames compressing, turning into marble sized dots of bluish white fire.
"I have a question for you Tono… A very serious question. Do you have anything to go back to?"
There was another pause, and then Tono frowned fiercely, her facial structure seemingly becoming more angular, shiny, and reflective, almost like the chitin of an insect.
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
Momonga raised a hand.
"It means just that, I, personally, have no family, very few friends, most of whom were apart of Yggdrassil in the first place, and have been working in a dead end job for most of my life. I'm not sure if I have any desire to go back. And Im wondering if its the same for you."
There was a pause, and then Tono sagged back into her chair, her face assuming a neutral expression that conveyed the same amount of emotion as Momonga's.
"Assume it is." She stated, in a tone like glacial ice. "What is your plan?"
Momonga shrugged, his massive bone shoulders making the movement impossible to miss, even with his voluminous robes.
"We're adventures aren't we? I want to go forth and explore, to find and conquer the farthest stretches of this world."
Momonga leaned forward, his voice becoming more and more animated as he spoke, until it was near a shout.
"We have no way of knowing if we are the only players in this world, or if they're even other guilds that we might need to contend ourselves with, we don't even know if any of our guild members were dragged into this."
Tono leaned back further into her chair, a little taken aback by Momonga's rampant enthusiasm. There was a long silence as she considered her guild masters points. Until finally she nodded firmly.
"Very well then."
Tonoigusa stood, her face firming.
"I will back you Momo. All the way."
Then, the player Guardian, and the Guildmaster clasped hands.
Scene Break
Tono sighed.
After her heart to bony heart with Momonga, she had teleported back up to her personal floor, and undone the transformation spell, letting her arachnid legs turn back. And then she had gone to work, pushing herself to master her new body, and for the most part she had. She could move and jump, she could crawl up and down walls, she could even use her legs as weapons. The only issue arose when she actually tried to use her new limbs for multiple purposes all at once, Tono had, she was sorry to say, unable to run and jump, or run and fight. Or even use more than two of her legs at once to fight.
Tono turned and waved to acknowledge the giggles and cheers coming from her peanut gallery.
A tiny, three foot tall girl in a yellow and blue dress with blond hair that fell down in ringlets that was laughing and giggling to herself as she rocked back and forth atop one of the thickly wound columns of spiders silk, her bare feet making odd springing noises against the silken threads.
"Hee-hoo! Do the one where you face plant against the doorway again mom!"
Tono felt one eye twitch. The little girls name was muffet, and she was the guardian that she had made to take her spot whenever she wasn't logged on. That wasn't to much in recent days… But still. Muffet was built similarly to Tono, but with a bend more towards tanking and trap setting then magic summoning. With classes in web weaver and perks like naturally unnatural tank, the actually annoying part of little Moffet was her lore.
Tono had poured some her… Personal issues into Moffets' lore, including the idea that Moffet was her biological child.
Yeah… That had been a surprise, being confronted by the spider the size of a Volkswagen that had jumped leaped towards her, and just as the massive albino spider was on top of her, it transformed into, well, an adorable little girl.
Tono just waved tiredly at Moffet, acknowledging her pseudo-daughters applause.
"Thanks Moffet. I think I'm done for the day though. I think ill take a tour of the other floors before meeting Momonga."
Moffet just giggled again before hopping up and backflipping away into the cobweb shrouded upper areas of the 1rst floor.
Tono caught a flash of white chitin and one red eye, and as the massive shape of Moffets transformed shape disappeared, she could the susurrations of chitin plates rubbing against each other.
Tono suppressed the shiver that threatened to claw its way up her spine.
She regretted her initial idea of making her floor the nest for hundred different races of spider, it had been cool in the fame when there wasn't any sort of tactile or sensory information, but now, 'ueeehhh', It was just creepy. Tono straightened her dress and smoothed her hair before making her way down to the second floor.
Scene Break
Shalltear sighed as she went over her main battle room, the church of flesh. She was under orders to check her floors, the second and third, for any irregularities and prep them to combat readiness, she was just about done, when the aura of one the supreme beings hit her like a brick. Shalltear swallowed, the subtle nuances of the Supreme beings aura allowed them to be told apart, and the one at the doors to the church of flesh was the more intimidating of the two.
The Lady Tonoigusa steeped through the opened doors and into the room, her black chitin almost wet in the ambient light of the church, her blue silver kimono, like someone had cut out a portion of the sky.
Shalltear quickly made to the center of the room and dropped to one knee.
"Lady Tonoigusa! It is a honor to have you on my floor!"
Left unsaid, was the 'but why are you here?'
Now, don't get her wrong, Shalltear had nothing but the utmost respect for the Lady Tonoigusa, hell, Shalltear would slice her own throat open if Lady Tonoigusa said that it would help her in any form.
But between the two supreme beings who were left, Tonoigusa was, well, she was the more frightening of the two. Lady Tonoigusa motioned for Shalltear to stand up as she moved closer, her long legs clicking against the cold pseudo-stone of the church floor until she was within arms length of Shalltear and then settled herself onto the ground, motioning for Shalltear to stand.
"Shalltear, stand. I'm touring the floors, and meeting the Guardians. Im also giving each Guardian the opportunity to ask me a question about any subject you would like to ask about. It can be anything, from information about myself, Momonga, or stories or answers about your creators."
Shalltear blinked. She knew that the supreme beings were beyond her own paltry comprehension, but she had to wonder why exactly Tonoigusa was doing this. But, she had been offered the opportunity to learn more about how her creators though, so she wouldn't give that away, so she stood, and smoothed the creases on her dress, before thinking for a moment, and then asking her question.
"Why did you stay behind? You could have left us like the others, but instead, you stayed with Momonga, you stayed with us. Why?"
Tonoigusa seemed to rock back on her legs for a brief moment before relaxing further, her thorax coming to rest against the stone floor, a contemplative look coming across the half-spiders face. Her long fingers undid her braid, and began combing through her jet black hair, she plucked a jade comb from deep inside one sleeve and continued to comb through her hair, before finally answering the vampire.
"The forms of the supreme beings that you know, are not are true ones. My original from was scarred, and wasted. Eventually I found refuge in Yggrassil with my fellow Supreme Beings. And for a while, we were all happy, we created and destroyed worlds. But slowly, the concerns of our original forms began to arise again, leading to my fellows to abandon this world, and you their creations, not because of any lack of love, but because they were needed. In the end, Momonga, who had invested his whole being into the great tomb of Nazarick, and I, who could escape my damaged form by doing the same."
Tonoigusa let out a long breath as she finished her explanation and turned to look at the still kneeling Shaltear with a look of concern on her face.
"Shalltear, are you alright?"
Shalltear couldn't help the massive twitch. Was SHE alright? What about The Supreme One? The person in question merely leaned forward and drew a finger across one of Shalltear's cheeks. It came away wet with tears.
Scene Break
Tono sighed as she left Shaltears floor to travel deeper into Nazarick. It had been interesting to see the NPC's thought processes, but at the same time, she couldn't help but be surprised, a little dismayed, and a little pleased by how quickly Shalltear had cut to the heart of the issue of her question.
Tono shook her head in amazement at the emotional and mental complexity of the NPC's as she continued her journey to Cocytus' floor, unaware of the frantic and emotional messages Shalltear was sending out to each Guardian as quickly as she could, each guardian reacting in a different way as they learned the 'truth' of why their creators left them.
Each visit, would, unbeknownst to her, get that much harder.