-The Mad Oscar-
Of all the vile creatures that prowl the underbelly of our world, few are as loathed as the Malboro. Once thought to be a myth, they were re-discovered lurking deep underground in the Kohlingen area almost a century ago, and have quickly become reknowned for their disgusting appearance and habits. Comprised of almost nothing but a ravenous mouth dripping with poison slime and an army of flailing tentacles, they have confounded all classification, as well as the unlucky souls who have attempted to classify them up close.
Perhaps in an attempt to lighten the dark aura that surrounds this crypt horror, the people of Kohlingen have taken to calling it "Mad Oscar" in honor of one of the town's most infamous and addled residents. The mad herbalist Oscar, who has lived in his own little corner of the town for nearly ninety years, and still practices his unusual art to this day, was one of the first people to make a real attempt at studying the Malboro. It was Oscar who first ventured deep into the abandoned catacombs south of the town and found these grotesque balls of green mold, hanging from the ceilings like giant bats. It is rumored his early encounters with the monsters, before he learned their strange ways, is what caused him to lose much of his sanity.
What Oscar found in those forgotten tombs was a being that was neither plant or animal. It most closely resembles a fungus, or mold, but on a much larger scale. Roughly twice the size of a man, the Malboro spends its entire life roaming the pitch black halls of Kohlingen's underground cemetery system, feeding on what the gods only know. The labyrinthine cemetery was abandoned ages ago, and it was not until Setzer attempted to renovate them for his lost love that any human had ever attempted to explore them besides Oscar. How Setzer got around the Malboro infestation he has never revealed, but I suspect he somehow managed to enlist Oscar's help, just as Locke did for his own lost love, Rachel. Oscar has always been a morbid fellow, and the idea of courting death must have been quite amusing to him.
Oscar himself made out quite well, insanity aside. Many of his potions and elixirs are derived from the stuff he finds inside the tombs. The Malboro itself is an overflowing zoo of exotic and potent substances, many of which are magical in nature. It is doubtful Oscar realized the magical source of his herbal remedies, but as soon as I met the fellow I could see that he was, in fact, a practicing mage, even though he didn't know it himself! For as long as he practiced his craft, people called him a miracle worker, capable of such feats of healing that it amazes me he wasn't accused of sorcery and necromancy. I guess one of the advantages of being old is that people simply assume you are a wise man rather than a wizard.
How Oscar manages to collect the bits and pieces of Malboro leftovers is his own personal secret. I highly doubt he engages the creatures in combat in his frail and unstable condition. Even seasoned warriors have great difficulty subduing the monsters, and besides Setzer and Oscar, no warrior has much reason to bother with them. Malboro tentacles are a prized ingredient in many strange concoctions, however. But seeing as Oscar seems to have a limitless supply of them in his basement stores, nobody tries to acquire them the hard way. It is rumored that Oscar actually has a small farm of tamed Malboros in a secret room of his basement, and that is where he collects the majority of his ingredients. I have even heard him whispering to the walls the names of women such as "Carrot" and "Vivian" and "Cassie" in a very tender voice. It is a disturbing sight, and leads me to believe the rumors of him attempting to domesticate the beasts, as truly insane as that would be. Mad Oscar, indeed.
The oddest and most disturbing use I've seen for the Malboro, however, is in the making of fine wine. And I use the term "fine" very loosely. Where I find the use of Over Grunk fluids for drink appalling, the idea of using any part of the Malboro for human consumption is incomprehensible to me. These creatures are the very embodiment of creeping death and decay, and some scholars even theorize they are undead golems gone feral, and not actually alive at all. I must say, their arguments do have weight, and as with many aspects of the Malboro, even the fact of whether they are dead or alive is up for debate. And yet, that does not stop people from poaching them for all they are worth. It seems the more unusual and dangerous a creature is, the more eager the hunters of the world are to experiment with its innards.
Oscar himself has been known to drink Malboro wine on occasion, and I firmly believe that has contributed to his continued descent into madness. Malboros are poison incarnate, and no matter what delirious effects a person may experience by drinking their juices, it cannot be good for the body, mind, or soul. Oscar may be over a hundred years old, but his mind is almost completely gone now, and I question whether the consumption and handling of too much of the Malboro hasn't turned him into some kind of zombie. It is a possibility, I must admit, as the undead do walk the earth even to this day, and most of them are as mindless as Oscar now is.
The Malboro itself is such a vile thing that perhaps it, too, is a zombie of sorts. It certainly has the stench of death about it, and there are few things in this world more pungent than the breath of a provoked Malboro. Now, this next fact may discomfort my readers a bit, and for that I beg your forgiveness. This "Bad Breath" of the Malboro is something I have experienced first-hand, and amazingly, I was able to duplicate its effects as a magic attack of truly vomit-inducing proportions. It is not a skill I used often, but there is no denying the power of a Malboro's rotten stink against almost any foe, no matter how brave or mighty they think themselves to be.
The breath is obviously magical in nature, for no natural process could produce such deadly fumes. This leads me to believe the Malboro itself is a magical mutation. I have studied the poison of the Over Grunk and compared it to that of the Malboro, and found they share some striking similarities to each other. It is possible the first Malboro was born from a nest of Over Grunk vines that were subjected to a massive magical infusion. Seeing as the Over Grunk itself is a fusion of plant and animal, this theory seems like a plausible one to me.
Maduin's An Esper's Compendium of Magical Beings lends weight to my theory. In it, Maduin describes the monster as a warped creation of wild magic that was able to control the Over Grunk as if they were part of its own body. He only ever encountered one Malboro in his travels, but apparently the effect it had on him was a strong one, for he makes special note of the grotesque nature of the fiend as a warning to the powers of uncontrolled magic. Past or present, there are few things in this world that stand as proof of Bad Magic more than the Malboro.
Another interesting facet of Maduin's tale is how he says the creature was defeated. A great rift opened up before the Malboro, and it was plunged into the darkest depths of the earth, never to be seen again. Or so the Esper thought. Somehow, the demon must have survived its judgment, and squirmed into the cracks of the earth to await a time when it could be free to plague the upper world once again. Kohlingen historical records show that the cemetery system it had been gradually adding deeper and deeper halls onto for centuries was suddenly abandoned roughly three hundred years ago. No reports of why it was abandoned, but I think it is safe to say the Malboro managed to finally worm its way back into the world of man. It is around this time that the myth of the Malboro started, and the cemetery was sealed off, dooming the Malboro to the depths for a second time.
What possessed Oscar to explore this place and expose the world to the threat of the Malboro a third time I will never know. His obsession with death was probably part of it. Setzer, too, suffered from an acute "love of death" for a time after the loss of the Falcon and Darill, and during those depressing years, he dug out large portions of the tombs with his own hands. So much of his love of Darill went into making his memorial, that the entire tomb system is now called "Darill's Tomb" in memory of both the woman, and the death-defying efforts of the man who loved her.
The Malboro lurks in these tombs quietly, always eager to snatch up the curious tourists who wish to disturb the slumber of the dead in an attempt to learn more about the famous warrior-hero-gambler-drunkard Setzer Gabbianni. Setzer has made no attempt to rid his beloved tomb of these menaces, or of any of the other nightmares that now call the place home. I think it is a part of his morbid sense of love that he leaves these monsters be. The tombs are his love song to Darill, and are an intensely private place to him. The monsters that roam its halls serve as the guardians of the dead, and serve it well. Darill's Tomb is no place for the living, and I assure you that Setzer prefers to keep it that way.
As for the Malboro itself, it is a mindless thing that does not think or feel beyond consuming whatever is placed within its reach. It has no brain that I can see, nor any sensory organs beyond its mouth and the array of feelers, whiskers, and tentacles that make up the entirety of its body. Love, and even emotion itself, is a foreign concept to this creature, and I honestly have no idea how it reproduces. It makes no sound to indicate it has a voice, or even lungs. Its famous breath is more of an explosion of magical gas than actual breathing, and I could sense no heartbeat on the rare occasions I have had to study the thing alive.
What is the Malboro? Is it a living entity, or a lifeless magical construct? A demon from another world? Senseless Death itself risen from the grave and taken physical form? I do not know, and now that magic is gone from this world and with it the one useful thing I have learned from the Malboro, I have little reason to subject myself to its grotesque form any longer. Leave the study of the "Mad Oscar" to mad Oscar himself.