Monster Party Book Seven: There's some things you're never gonna help or change, but hunger is something we can turn around!
Chapter Fourteen: Splashes of eternal hate will flood the floor and clean your slate.
"You know, I've got an idea Boss. A good idea, a great idea, a revolutionary idea, an idea the like of which the Core has never seen before!" Cal began to boast.
"What if we just don't open this door?" The alchemist succinctly suggested.
Alexander rolled his single visible eye and sighed.
"Well of course we could not open the door. The problem is that what exactly would we do next? First we'd have to convince everyone we're traveling with to keep it closed also, or at the very least let us leave and take the Eye of Zhakata with us.
That would be easier said that done given that we're dealing with religious and revolutionary fanatics. Assuming we could pull that off though, the only thing left for us to do would be randomly wandering around G'Henna's deserts until the Mists feel like picking us up and dropping us off somewhere else.
Which I don't consider to be all that likely, because as fickle as the Mists are, I can't remember any time they've ever grabbed us when we were actively in the middle of some major quest. No, they prefer to strike when we're between jobs, and would probably be content to let us spend who knows how long in the middle of G'Henna's deserts, eking out a living thanks only to Florence's spells.
It would be either that, or going back to Zhukar, having made ourselves enemies of both Yagno Petrovna and the Circle of Darkness, ensuring we get it from both sides at once.
Opening this door may be foolish… opening this door is going to be foolish. Our problem is that it isn't quite as foolish as the any of the other options available." The silver haired man insisted.
"So you're saying we can't just go back to Zhukar, and punch Yagno Petrovna in the face? I knew we shouldn't have just let him walk away back in the temple..." Mirri pouted.
"So, do any of us have any idea what is actually on the other side of this door, or are we all just guessing it is some variant of really, really, really bad?" James Firecat cut in with a surprising amount of timidly.
"I can't be sure if what is behind his door is responsible for killing those animals we saw outside, or if it was some general malefic spell laid upon the building itself. It might even genuinely be Zhakata the Provider trying desperately to survive by clinging to whatever scraps of life it can find. Not that I was especially believe that." Florence offered.
"This discussion is only just starting and already I'm getting sick of it. I've come to a decision and I'm not going to be swayed. We're going to have lunch." Alexander Diamondclaw declared.
This proved to be one of Alexanders more popular decisions, as the group could all agree that whatever was on the other side of the door, after however long it had been sealed away, it could stay sealed away a little longer so that they wouldn't have to face it on an empty stomach.
So the adventurers settled in for a quick meal.
Devi's bag of holding as always had provisions stored away for such an occasion. James nibbled on some magically preserved meat (his lycanthropic constitution could only draw sustenance from freshly slain prey, though it seemed that the proper magic could allow something to qualify as "freshly slain" for quite a while) while in turn Mirri nibbled on James' neck, and the others helped themselves to less exotic fair.
Canteens were drunken from and enough dead wood was also produced to get a small fire going. Its warmth wasn't much, but it somehow managed to make the place feel at least a little less ominous than it would have otherwise.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" An aggrieved voice demanded of them mid-meal.
Unsurprisingly, such loud tones emanated from Bolsh the Blessed.
"Eating. I know it is a rather rare occurrence in G'Henna, but us foreigners tend to do it, several times a day in fact!" Alexander replied mockingly.
"How can you rest and delay while we are on the cusp of greatness?" The priest insisted.
Alexander felt a great deal more like he was on the cusp of calamity, but he knew Bolsh was unlikely to believe that particular argument.
So instead he decided to stick to more well established facts, in between taking bites out of chicken.
"I thought I told you to wait and not go into the dungeon until I said it was clear?" He demanded with an accusatory arched eyebrow.
"I used my inspired divine powers to scry your location and reveal that you were sitting stuffing your faces rather than fighting for the release of Zhakata the Provider and the future of G'Henna!" Bolsh insisted.
Alexander gulped down the rest of the chicken leg, took some time to wipe his mouth clean and slowly stood up.
"All right. You want to see what lays behind this door? Fine, we're going to do this. We're going to open this door. We'll see what is behind it. There's no way that you'll end up regretting it." He sighed.
Then Alexander removed the Eye of Zhakata from his throat, and placed it into the slot in the gigantic door.
There was a soft click and almost instantly gears began to grind and the door began to slide open.
Behind the massive door lay a chamber of a most unusual nature.
Although spacious, it felt small and cramped from just how cluttered it was with tables and shelves. It was lit by two small braziers at the far end of the chamber, which had somehow remained lit since before the door was sealed.
Shadows gathered in the corners of the room and clung to the boney beams overhead. Between the doorway and the braziers stood a podium, upon which rested a massive book. A body was slumped at the foot of the podium, with two more laying near the center of the room, and a fourth crumpled at the far end. Here and there could be seen the remains of small animals in varying states of mummification.
In the center of a complicated series of all manner of runes and mystical markings was yet another figure. This figure wasn't human, it was hard to say why, and yet something from within rose up to insist upon it. The figure looked hunch over and skeletally thin, yet even in such a compact state was still slightly more than eight feet tall.
Alexander took one look at it and came to a conclusion.
"Run." He insisted.
"Alexander..." Florence began to question him.
"Alpha Female, take the pack and run. Don't stop running until you're out of this place." He demanded as he began to reach for his eye patch.
"Alpha Male..." Florence pleaded with him, saying more with two words than most could with twenty.
"I've suffered two horrific defeats in my life that made me who I am today. Both came about because I underestimated my foes. There won't be a third. Take the pack and run." Alexander insisted, grinding subtly sharpening teeth together as he spoke.
Florence nodded slowly and began to make a few quick hand motions which wordlessly drew the attention of the other adventurers and told them that the time had come for flight.
As for Alexander, he cast aside his eye-patch revealing his right eye for all to see once again.
Then he charged forward in a blur of silver hair and black cloth.
As he crossed the boundary of the intricate drawings upon the floor a shower of sparks suddenly burst to life, completely surrounding him and yet leaving him completely unharmed all the same.
He landed within the circle and stood only inches away from the figure contained within it.
That figure began to move with almost pitiable slowness, its skin stretched tightly over a body that bore no clothing. A body that bore no signs of being either male or female.
"Your life… why can't I have your life?" The the creature hissed through its parched lips.
"Is that all you really care about? Taking what belongs to someone else?" He demanded of the strange being.
"Revenge… revenge. Revenge against Yagno Petrovna who imprisoned me. I will have his life, I will destroy all that he loves for what he has done to me..." The figure insisted.
Alexander simply stared at the figure.
For a brief moment he was unwilling to strike the first blow, every though every rational human part of his mind told him that he had best strike fast and true while he might yet have a chance of success.
"Step away from Lord Zhakata you heretic!" Insisted Bolsh the Blessed.
He charged forward towards the circle containing Alexander and the figure, headless of the arcane runes between them.
"Stay back if you value your life!" Alexander warned, turning to face the priest.
"My faith protects me, there can stand no obstacle that can prevent me from standing in worship before my god!" Bolsh declared dramatically.
Then he set foot upon the runes.
The priest was blasted with mystical lighting that erupted from the floor, walls, and ceiling.
One moment Bolsh the Blessed had been a living human priest, the next whatever remained of his body was nothing but a pile of flash cooked meat.
"The blood of a devout man, spilled in earnest dedication to their god. What sweet succulent sustenance it is." Cackled the figure.
Through some unknown, possibly even unknowable method, the figure seemed to draw power from Bolsh's death. Its eyes began to glow with an eerie light, and leathery wings unfolded from its back.
Its facial features seem to run, melt, and remold themselves like clay and began to expand outwards, growing bat-like as well.
"I hunger!" The figure demanded, its voice still a skeletal rasp, but now there was an undercurrent of deniable power behind it.
It crooked a finger at one of the many mongrelmen who had accompanied the Circle of Darkness. The poor unfortunate soul's eye began to emit a golden glow and as if in a daze it started to stumble towards the circle the had so recently slain Bolsh.
Such actions swiftly brought Alexander warring instincts over how best to deal with this figure into complete alignment.
"HE!" The silver haired man punched the figure square in its bat-like face.
"IS!" After the initial blow, his hand swung back, slamming its knuckles into the figure's hallow cheeks.
"OF!" Alexander grabbed the figure by its throat.
"MY!" Alexander dragged its head downwards.
"PACK!" The silver haired man slammed his head into the figure's with all the force he could muster.
The figure went flying backwards, its hollow boned form easily tossed through the air by the fury of Alexander's assault.
It stopped with an abrupt suddenness when it struck the inner edge of one of the arcane runes, as if it had struck an invisible wall. Alas the mystical energy that had claimed Bolsh's life only seemed to trigger when something from outside tried to enter the circle, and not the reverse.
Yet for all the physical violence Alexander unleashed upon the figure, he was unable to break its hold over the mongrelman. The poor transformed G'Hennan continued forward, trodding inevitably upon upon the arcane runes, and was promptly slain no less swiftly than Bolsh.
Strange blue energy crackled between the now deceased mongrelman and the figure, temporarily giving the circle's prisoner an azure haze.
"You have no power here, foolish creature of meat and bone!" The figured laughed in Alexander's face.
Risking a flicker quick look back, Alexander saw that indeed the situation was only growing worse. Now all of the mongrelmen's eyes had developed a golden glow and the Circle of Darkness members who had recently seen their leader slain by their own "god" were all too confused to do anything.
"If I help you kill Yagno Petrovna, will you let them go?" Alexander offered, hoping desperately that he might be able to play one evil off against another.
"How pathetic, that you imagine that you could offer me anything that I could not take from you! I will take everything from Yagno Petrovna, take everything from all who live in his land. Only then will my revenge be complete!" The figure coughed out with malefic glee.
"I won't let you kill them!" Alexander snarled, racing over to the fallen figure and seizing it by the neck before hefting it up into the air.
"Why should I kill when I can do so much better, when I can feast, and they can serve me still! They have already been shaped once, that makes this all so much easier..." The figure cackled in delight.
Alexander pummeled the bizarre figure, but no matter how hard he struck, its bones re-knit themselves only moments after being broken.
The figure stole strength and vitality form all of the mongrelmen in the room, and as it did so their bodies melted like blobs of candle wax. Yagno Petrovna had seen to it that they resembled a jumbled mass of many different types of well known creatures, the figure somehow managed to compound their suffering, remaking them to resemble no mortal being Alexander had ever encountered.
One vaguely resembled a misshapen large fanged orangutan, its hands ending in massive claws while gray skin was covered by reddish brown fur. Another was short and squat, its skin almost rubbery. Its torso was extremely bloated while its arms and legs were oddly gangly, and its mouth had gone slack as slobber poured pass its small fangs. Still a third was simply a mass of pale oozing flesh, emitted the horrid stench of rotting sores.
With every mongrelman so twisted the figure grew larger and stronger.
I had always been taller than Alexander, but now it stood twice his height, towering over the silver haired man.
"Your pathetic attacks are nothing but pinpricks to me! I am reborn, my strength restored! What are you but some pathetic puppy, mindlessly yapping at my feet?" The horrific monster mocked him.
Alexander drew Wolf Claw and struck.
His blade bit cleanly through the beast's right leg at the ankle and sliced the limb in half.
"Does that answer your question?" The silver haired man demanded.
He struck again, aiming for the remaining leg this time, but the beast's mighty right hand descended with equal speed and strength, deflecting this blow, as its wings began to flap so as to steady itself.
"Rage. Such rage in your heart. Your heart is flooded with futile pathetic rage.
It is but a candle before the bonfire of my own though! No mortal can know suffering as I have suffered at the hands of Yagno Petrovna! To be locked away from the world, to starve and shrivel! All in this land will suffer for his actions, all in this land will be made to serve me!" The beast ranted.
As it did so, Alexander attacked again.
"Revenge only begets revenge. That is why I have never in my life desired revenge, only justice for the wrongs done to me. Only justice settles matters with finality!" Alexander vowed as his blade slashed forward with incredible speed and force.
Once again however the creature's mighty limbs managed to swat aside Wolf Claw. As if to add insult to injury the monster's severed limb promptly began to regenerate, a new leg growing from the old one's stump with frightening speed.
"Enough of this, I will rearrange your flesh and you will come to serve me as well!" Demanded the monster as golden energy began to glow about it.
Wolf Claw dropped form Alexander's hands. Then he leaped into the air, transforming into his hybrid shape in the process, and rammed a furry first into the monster's leering smile.
"I will rearrange your fucking face!" The silver furred wolfman snarled back in defiance.
Glistening golden energy poured forth from the monster, but as it struck Alexander it parted like water going around a rock, silver sparks suddenly erupting from his body.
"This pointless contest bores me." The monster huffed contemptuously, seemingly unharmed by Alexander's blow.
With a wave of it right hand and a stream of golden energy casually obliterated the complex runes carved into the floor, annihilating the carefully constructed arcane circle. Then there was an incongruously gentle popping noise and the monster was gone. In its place remained a ghostly golden after image, an incorporeal copy of the beast that been contained within only moments ago.
"While your vain struggle to resist my peerless powers has lost its charm, I might have other uses for you mortal. The crystal that was stolen from me, used to bind me, is missing. While I amused myself at your expense, some other pathetic cockroach has made off with it.
I will have it back, just as I will crush Yagno Petrovna beneath my claws. If you assist me in recovering the stone I will reward you, I will even allow you to leave this land rather than suffering its fate despite the insolence you have shown me. If you continue to defy me however, your suffering and that of all you care or will be as great as Yagno's own.
I will give you one day to decide and hold my servants at bay for that time. If by the next sunrise you have not sworn fealty to me, what remains of your pathetic life will be equal parts long, and agonizing." The ethereal copy informed Alexander.
Just as the creature had promised, its newly remade servants remained still as statues and did not try to attack him, even when he retrieved his eye-patch from the floor. Somehow the black fabric had remained unharmed throughout all the momentous events occurring around it, allowing him to revert back to his human form.
He left the room and on his way out confirmed that there was no sign at all of the black stone that had been used to open the door.
The ominous aura that had pervaded the structure was paradoxically lessened now, probably because it only contained the memories of its twisted occupant rather than the genuine article.
He traced his way back towards the entrance to the dungeon, a dour expression fixed on his face the entire time.
No new horrors arose to confront him, at least not until he reached the chamber where he and the others had destroyed the three large skeletal warriors.
"Zhakata!" A voice called out, and a moment later a bone broke free from the walls and hurled itself at Alexander.
Wolf Claw slid free from its sheath again and easily batted the projectile aside.
"I don't have time to deal with you right now." Alexander growled.
"Zhakata!" The animator remained undeterred and managed to toss another large bone at the target of its ire.
It met the same fate as the first, and Alexander ended up deflecting several more primitive projectiles as he crossed the room, but never bothered to actually go on the offensive.
The outraged cries of the animator echoed after him when he left, but since the huge skeletal warriors had been smashed, the animator seemed unable to find any truly suitable objects to imbue with its essence and continue the assault.
When Alexander left the building there was a haunted look in his single green eye.
He didn't even give his five companions a chance to ask any of their numerous questions before he announced the decision that he'd come to shortly after the monster had made its offer.
"Yagno Petrovna. If we're not going to die horribly, we need to get help from Yagno Petrovna." The silver haired man insisted.
"Well, not dying horribly is one of my favorite past times..." Callan Wright pointed out.
End Chapter.
AN: Clash Royal, visiting my brother's place to play boardgames, this chapter should not have taken as long to write as it did.
But I will not leave you guys hanging/this story in any kind of serious hiatus, I am going to drag myself over the finish line even if I only do a chapter a month, though I'll try and have them come out quicker than that….
