So, Rain World: Downpour has finally come out on console. I've been waiting an extra 7 months for the console version, trying my hardest to avoid spoilers, and I finally played through it a bit, but, well...
The artificer campaign of Rain World has destroyed me emotionally. I returned to this website after 3 years of inactivity from fanfiction just to get these thoughts out of my head. I need to redeem artificer in my mind so I can rest easy, because my heart has been shattered.
Now presenting:
Reconciliation: The Artificer's Story of Bloodlust and Redemption
What fate a slugcat, in a land where even rain can kill?
As she desperately ran through the rain, fur sizzling through the contact with water, a thought kept crossing her mind, that she didn't bother to acknowledge.
"Why not just die?" her mind nagged.
It was a good question. The pain of the rainwater was unbearable, and though there was a possibility she could make it to the shelter, it would be more sensible to just let the water kill her quickly.
She pressed on regardless of the intrusive thoughts, knowing her haven was only one room away. Mustering up a blast, she pounced onto a vine that most creatures would never be able to access. Her abilities however were unique to her, and with those abilities came setbacks. Namely, the pain from the rainwater threatening to snuff her life as though it was a bomb fuse.
"It's not like it would matter either way."
Of course, even if the thoughts weren't pestering her to die, her body was being governed by her primal instincts alone. The need to eat, the need to sleep, and the need to kill.
Her day had, after all, gone successfully. She had enough food to hibernate, a shelter in the belly of the beast, and most importantly, enough blood on her hands for her conscience to rest easy.
That last part though was a false hope however, a lie she told herself to keep her going, as after all, her mind had been plagued with nightmares from the day she first killed for pleasure.
It taunted her constantly. The creatures, the vermin, the pestilence that hurt her so long ago continued to cause her anguish.
She would kill them, over and over again.
They would feel her wrath.
At last, through turmoil, the shelter was in her sight. Just a perilous crossing through a rainstorm which pelted her fur coat like rocks. But another blast from within her soon propelled her across the gap and into the tunnel where she would receive her long awaited warmth.
She shook the rainwater from her sizzling hide, writhing within to let off some excess chemical reactions. But she held it in, so as to not expend what little energy she had.
The shelter itself, for what little space it had, gave her enough comfort to rest.
The soft humming and red glow of Sofantheil, her emotionless, wordless and thoughtless companion.
Her prized possession; the chieftain scavengers' mask, cracked and tarnished. Pearls that it had cherished so dearly hung from the antlers, though some were chipped, some were missing. She herself couldn't care less either way.
A spear, imbued with explosives. One rock and one lump of scrap metal, both similarly laced with destructive might.
It was all the comfort she needed.
As the cycle reached its end, the mechanisms of her shelter whirred to life, slamming metal against metal in an unrelentingly noisy sequence devised to shut her off from the bleakness of the outside world.
The entrance barred itself off, and pipes folded away from view. The noise ceased, and the rain was muffled to the point it was inaudible. At last, there was peace in her life, if only for a single night.
She curled up and closed her one functioning eye. It wouldn't be long before exhaustion would catch up with her, and consciousness faded.
You, who have encountered a consequence much like my own.
Gripped by raw emotions whose chains bind you, destined to this land.
Shortcomings of the past haunt one and all like whispering phantoms.
An unrewarding battle awaits, culminating in a path of no return.
A perpetuity of struggles begetting more of the same.
We are a pair who have forfeited everything.
"Why?" she tried to cry out, despite knowing she would receive no reply. "Why am I still here?"
Wrath.
In her eyes a single Symbol flashed. She couldn't speak it, but since her encounter with the random god dressed in pink and orange, she could understand it. And ever since she could understand The Symbols, they permeated her thoughts each and every cycle.
The lowest of the symbols. The radical for the sign of danger. For the sign of the outlaw. The symbol of wrath. The symbol of her destiny.
Wrath.
The Symbol glowed in her vision, red as her own bloodlust. It was so enticing, so moving... She desired nothing more than wrath. To inflict pain. To kill.
Over and over again.
For each and every cycle, now until the Journey's End, wrath would be her destiny.
She opened her mouth to scream, but whatever words she wanted to say were drowned out by the piercing warblings of the echo.
She opened her eye. Her shelter had whirred to life, preparing to open once again. A new cycle was dawning, though if there was any daylight this cycle was unclear for how dark and tinged in red light her shelter was. She could only see The Symbol which haunted her every thought.
She stepped out of the gate as the latch opened, and found herself in the House of Braids once again. Clutching a spear in her hand, she set off, glancing briefly but constantly towards the arachnids that swarmed the walls. The smaller ones were of no consequence to her - they didn't scare her, nor did they make for a particularly satisfying meal, though they would do if she was ever hard pressed for food, and that scenario certainly had come up a number of times. It was when they grouped up that they should pose a threat to her, and she knew she needed to avoid facing down a swarm, no matter how strong she may be.
Ropes trailed down from the ceiling, too far away to see. She followed where the ropes led from, but did not climb them. She wanted to leave the way she came, and put this area behind her. She wanted to leave the metropolis for the subterranean region.
It would be a long trek, but it was a path she had memorized, from many different journeys.
Scaling down the Wall.
Hopping across the top of the Canopy.
Scaling down the Sky Islands until entering the bordee of the Farm Arrays. From there, it was only two reindeer rides until she could reach the gate to enter the Subterranean. The only issue would be entry.
In fact, she wondered if she could even exit the Metropolis at all.
She wandered downwards until reaching an exit. Daylight, at last! She scurried outside to be greeted by a popcorn plant, recently regrown. The perfect meal for her empty stomach. However, the explosives on her spear would probably render the meal inedible, leaving her to feast on spiders again. She went back inside the House of Braids in search of a spear, and she knew exactly where to go.
She climbed and climbed, not stopping for a break. The area was strangely devoid of any activity at all. This was suspicious, but she didn't let her guard down. A white lizard could be around any corner, and she'd have no time to react to it if she wasn't prepared for it.
But after another hour of walking and climbing. there was nothing at all, just eerie silence.
And then she entered the scavengers' palace, the domain of the chieftain.
The late chieftain. Deceased by her own hands.
Spears, maces and explosives lined the floor, but even more than that was the dried blood that stained the floorboards, becoming more red than wood. She tentatively picked up a mace, trading it for her explosive one.
"Ah!"
She jumped with a start and spun around, hearing a noise from behind her. Not just a noise, but a scream. The yelling of a scavenger.
Wrath flashed in her eyes once again.
The scavenger dropped a pearl it was holding, eyes widening. It took a step back, but it was too late.
The sound of a loud bang rung through the air as the Artificer jumped through the air. In an instant, she was behind the creature.
It didn't have a moment to realise where she had went, because as it reached for it's spear and turned around, a white-hot pain seared through it's abdomen.
It looked down only to see the tip of a mace, covered in blood. Then the mace disappeared, leaving only a hole which leaked blood.
The creature collapsed, succumbing quickly to its death.
She grabbed the lapel of the dead creature, inspecting the kill. It had soft brown skin and was likely a female, judging by her smaller, frailer frame. She seemed to be truly frightened of the slugcat in her final moments alive.
Perhaps it would be enough to get through the metropolis gates.
The first thing she did was tear off the scavengers' mask, and then she put the mace on her back as she proceeded to drag the corpse to the outside, making sure to drag it's face against the dirt and grime of the rough floor. It gets what it deserves, after all.
Once she reached the popcorn plant, she took her mace and split the shell as though it was flesh. The corn proceeded to expand and pop, becoming delectable foodstuffs.
She proceeded to eat her fill, and took a break to regain her strength. Then, she dragged the body further, her sights set on the gates leading out of the metropolis.
The area was... Unusually quiet. Vultures, lizards and dropwigs usually lurked around every corner, as if waiting for her, knowing that her kind is easy prey.
Her every conscious moment involved being under threat of attack. Yet, here she was, walking in the open, encumbered by the corpse she dragged across the floor behind her, yet there was no threat in sight.
She felt... Uneasy.
It was one thing to be surrounded by the screeches of the most dangerous predators. To be facing the maw of a lizard that can camouflage; grab their victims with their tongues before they can even realise they were there.
It was another to be surrounded by complete and utter silence. Not knowing what lies ahead. Wondering if there was something lurking. Watching.
The corpse scraped across the ground as she dragged it, the hardness of the scavengers' bare face clacking against the surface. She yanked it over a large step and into another tunnel. This time, to the gate.
The way out of the metropolis.
Her eyes locked onto the flashing holograms above the whirring. Though the language was not her own, but that of a far stranger species, she was granted the ability to understand it, even if she could not read it.
All she needed to see was the single symbol shown by the hologram. That which showed the highest symbol - the radical of survival.
In other words, she could not enter the gate. But she already knew this from the start, having tried this scenario before. It was the scavenger that would get her through.
The corpse would be detected by the gate, and would have permission to pass through, and she would drag it through with her. After all, that was how she entered.
She dragged the corpse into the gate with her, and waited.
And waited.
Nothing happened.
She was confused. This had worked before, but why not now?
Perhaps she would have to find a different scavenger.
She growled, slashing at the corpse one more time before leaving it in the gate.
BANG!
She spun around - all of a sudden, the gate clamped shut and the structure began to whirr and screech viciously.
After several seconds, she heard pistons open the gate on the other side, but in front of her it remained shut.
She slammed herself against the closed door futilely. The gate had opened for the scavenger, but only when she had left.
What did that mean? Had the gate specifically banished her, and only her?
And why?
No... She knew.
It was because of her wrath.
She turned around and left the structure, knowing that she could not come back.
When she stepped outside, it was windier than before. The cycle was nearly over.
She scurried back to where her shelter was. The cycle had been entirely uneventful, and she had wasted a popcorn plant. Certainly not ideal.
When she re-entered the House of Braids, the ground had already started to shake. This was certainly a quick cycle, considering how little she had accomplished.
Her shelter was at the other end of the room. She quickened her pace, hearing rain smashing against the ground outside. Soon it would come inside as well.
She dived in the pipe no sooner than the rain poured into the building. She was safe once again.
..?
She crawled through the pipe, but was not prepared to face another creature on the other end, inside of her shelter.
No... Two creatures.
Two scavengers.
Their eyes widened when they saw her enter the room, bloodied, wearing a mask, blocking their only way out.
And she hissed, grabbing her mace and ripping off her mask, ready to kill once again.
But suddenly, she froze.
The rain came down like a spread of bullets, thrashing the shelter with an intensity that made it shudder furiously.
She didn't move.
She couldn't move.
These scavengers were different. They were smaller - much smaller than normal scavengers, and even smaller than her.
Scavenger kittens.
She stared at them through the hollow eyes of the chieftain mask, and they stared back, blinking rapidly. They believed they were with another one of them. They believed they were safe.
Perhaps the cycle wouldn't be a failure after all.
For the first time in her life she smiled. Yes, a cruel grin, for she knew it was fate that her destiny brought her here, to where she can finally exact revenge!
The mother of these kits, a scavenger, will finally face her wrath... She will know how it feels to lose everything...
It was all she ever wanted; for every scavenger to lose all that they ever loved, after they had taken it away from her.
She put her paw around the mace on her back. It was decided - these children must die. It was only fair, really.
The kitten did not look scared - in fact, it looked curious.
Then, it pulled something from its own back. Not a weapon, but an orb; one that shone with the lustre of an emerald.
A pearl. Rather, a data pearl, as the pink god had called it.
After all, scavengers loved pearls.
But so did her son.
"Little ruffian.
You are stuck in a cycle, a repeating pattern."
Spears started flying as scavengers surrounded.
She ripped the pearl out of her eldest kit's paw, and threw it towards the scavengers. Then, with her free paw wrapped firmly around the littlest kit, allowed herself to propel upwards, over a large pylon, using it to separate herself and her youngest from the hostile creatures.
"A primal urge, one that tears from deep inside your very core, keeps you bound here."
She sat the kit down and went back over the pylon to retrieve her eldest. However, when she reached the top, a spear sailed right into the pylon where she lay crouched, and the tip ignited right by her eye. Before she could react, it released a powerful shockwave launched her up and backwards, all the while blowing shattered debris into one eye.
And there, in the air, she caught a glimpse of her son - the last image to be burned into the retina of her dying eye.
He was face first against the ground at the base of the pylon, with a spear embedded in his abdomen. Blood was pooled beneath him.
"From the glimpses I have been shown of your journey so far, it is apparent you have a need to inflict violence against the scavenger population."
She grabbed the little kitten and hefted her onto her back. She ran as fast as she could, but the scavengers were naturally quicker. They made it over the pylons, and were gaining.
A deep pond stood between her and an escape. It was perfect - she was the only one with the ability to cross without getting swarmed and drowned by the leeches.
With her child holding on, she took a leap - and mustered up the most powerful explosion she could.
BANG.
She shot up above the lake -
BANG.
A second explosion went off. That wasn't supposed to happen.
The blast viciously slammed her onto the other side of the pond. She had escaped.
The kit was not so lucky. The second explosion had knocked her off her mother's back into the festering pool of leeches. Adrenaline may have been able to save her from one, but she could not fight a pack.
The last time her mother would ever see her would be her shadow, being pulled further and further into the lake.
A scavenger lowered his now-empty throwing arm.
The shelter doors locked behind the Artificer, the cruel and spiteful creature that had inflicted genocide against the scavengers. Two more were in front of her, meek and defenseless.
Just like her own kittens.
She turned to face the whirring door, and rammed her head against it, causing herself to bleed from the nose.
The mask she wore, the symbol of her victory, began to crack at the helm. First, an antler broke off and fell. As she headbutted the steel surface a second time, the whole mask split, cracks running right through through one eye hollow.
The eye that was destroyed in the explosion.
The mask fell, piece by piece, onto the floor. And with it, so did the Artificer.
She quickly succumbed to her exhaustion.
"Mama..."
She awoke with a start. A kitten called out to her. Her kitten. She looked around, only to find her daughter staring back, tugging at her arm.
She looked around. She was underneath a tree, a lone tree, surrounded by several mounds of gravel and shards of scrap metal.
Her home.
Once upon a time
This was where she lived with her children.
One shelter within the garbage wastes
They were content.
She saw her eldest kit, her son, playing down below. There was a white pearl in his hand: He always had a fascination with pearls, especially the coloured ones, and wanted to keep them polished. The luminescence of the colour was likely pleasant for him to look at.
She frowned. This must be a dream. After all, her children were dead. They had been so for many cycles now; nearly a hundred.
Her son looked up at his mother and little sister and grinned. It was the same grin he wore the last time they were together.
The smaller kitten lay down beside her, noticing her mother's pain. "Mama... It's okay."
Her eye widened. Her child... Was speaking using the spoken language? How was that possible? Not even the most intelligent scavengers could communicate real language; the only living creature that could would be the god she visited.
But the voice was unmistakable - it was her kit, no doubt about it.
She opened her mouth to reply, but all she could do was whimper. She didn't know how to communicate; the benevolent god only gave her the ability to listen.
"You are right, Mama... It is just a dream. But at the same time, it's very real.
You're having this dream because you've finally accepted that we're gone.
But at the same time, we are still here, waiting.
I want to see you again, Mama."
A tear ran down the one functioning eye of the Artificer. A single tear, that immediately sizzled and faded to smoke upon contact with her combustible fur.
She embraced her daughter tightly, and her son climbed up and hugged them also.
"Mama," he said. "You know what you need to do."
She nodded slowly.
In the embrace of her two children, she closed her eyes once again. But instead of darkness, she saw blood red.
But slowly,
So slowly,
The colour faded away.