Quiet…

So calm and quiet, besides the sound of such slumbering breaths and occasional mumbles… Most of the captive denizens were now asleep, besides a few—including herself. Whatever specks of light had once penetrated through had vanished; it was definitively night.

Nilia herself was not necessarily…tired, even if understimulated. Her back, as it was before, remained against the back wall whilst she sat.

It was dark, beyond the dimly lit lamps of the Huckleberrien soldiers standing watch. Her mask-obscured eyes had been monitoring them… There were twelve of them now, two more having had freshly arrived. They were, with respect to the number of captives, quite outnumbered… Of course, they had firearms, but each only had a single shot. She reasoned that, if all of the captives decided to, they could overwhelm the guards before they could reload… There was a twelve-casualty maximum.

However, taking this room was one thing, taking this whole building was another; she highly doubted these non-combatants could pull such a thing off… All the actual fighters—the former garrison—were being held in a separate room, likely under stricter and more numbered watch. It was possible that word of a breakout could cause the occupiers to preemptively execute the captive soldiers and officers, to prevent them from joining or…just to deny potential militarized coordination.

Truly… With nothing to think about—with nothing to do—, such was all she could do: ponder… Speculative tactics, strategies for breaking out, or just…plainly wondering what 'game' was even being played, and how it would end…

Nilia sighed just a little, her mind…finding itself…reflecting. In this moment, she could not help but begin to think about…this whole entire year in the retrospect.

Indeed. Almost one year… Eleven months… Much had befallen in merely eleven months, compared to the initial year of her being stranded here. She could only wonder if this was how every year felt for these denizens… Long, drawn out, and slow—filled with an admixture of events and nothingness…

From her job at that tavern, to her firing, and her short career as an adventurer and all the events which had happened therein; from her so-called 'sponsor' whom she had not seen at all since the bombardment despite having obvious plans for her; to the Bureau which clearly had some deeper interest in her yet for reasons they were never going to tell outright; and now the Company—Faulkner and his Thirteenth…

And between the Bureau to the Thirteenth, she still had no idea what either of those two wanted from her; what their true plans were… And it seemed that no matter which denizen 'side' tried to pull her as if she were something to be 'pulled'… None of them seemed to know how to properly utilize her—or what to even utilize her as…

The Bureau had seemingly given an impression—or at least Novea had—that she was going to be an operative of theirs, only to find herself heavily restricted and often kept hidden and sheathed than wielded. The Company, or Faulkner's Thirteenth, at least had an idea… They wanted her to be this strategic 'spearhead' to thrust victory to their campaign. Yet she only ended up finding herself, well, trapped here…doing paperwork.

Denizens and their constant absurdities, truly…

Indeed, from this thought, a certain word abruptly entered mind as if by synaptic proximity. 'Rent', that one absurd motivation that had driven much… She could only wonder if the rent of her former associate's housing unit was even being paid. She had been told it would be handled, yet it was possible the denizens backtracked on that as they had on…practically everything else.

Truth be told, sometimes such strange thoughts would oddly enter her mind as of late… Speculations as to what would have been the outcome had she…actually submitted the Collegium's application. What alternative routes she would have reconnoitered…

{D-m-ne.}

Suddenly, a buzz.

Nilia, caught by slight surprise, snapped out of her mind; she straightened her posture, as her right hand quickly covered her blinking communicator device. She listened, none of the audio bleeding out from her ear.

The tone of Bee's speech matrix was neither frantic nor calm as it told; it was a certain kind of focused cold.

Nilia's mask-obscured cyanic eyes nearly widened, a subtle and mostly hidden yet nevertheless present shift in her breaths, as if an emerging tension… « Quid? » Masking any sense of urgency, she calmly stood herself up and quickly eyed around, inconspicuously.

The Huckleberrien soldiers were…attentive…yet also inattentive—complacent. The other denizens were, obviously, asleep; those who were not were barely looking her way. Frankly, however, this situation demanded immediate attention, regardless of noticeability.

Thus, with a breath in and out, she casually leaned her back against the wall, turning her head to the right with a gentle lean as to obscure their angle of view. Keeping her obfuscating hand over her communicator, her index finger began to press a specific button located on the device's back.

Dot. Tap. Dot, dot. Tap, tap. Dot.

She rapidly pressed in a patterned sequence of fast 'dots' and long 'taps', silently communicating with her sentinel to ascertain the situation; to understand…what in all the Void just happened.

Bee had lost total connection with—registration of—Novea's allocated communicator; all attempts to 'buzz' the device had failed.

Interim

A sputtering splurge of jittering spit and seizing limbs; the bottom of the soldier's head, the top of his neck, had been struck by that sharp and pulsating proboscis-like tip, contracting and uncontracting; it suctioned and slurped… Brainy sludge so flowed through the transparent tendril-like vine, filling the hollow tube with nerval matter, which flowed down into the veiny roots and through them…the greater network of roots and vines…which all seemed to ultimately lead to that ceiling above.

Brains scooped out, the hollow shell fell amidst a dozen more, the perpetrating gelatinous flower-lookalikes mutating from that purple-blue into a more…violent violet hue, each merely responding to a hum's changing tune. The luminescent fibers sprouting from the ground then began to stretch and grasp, as if the tentacles of an anemone, slowly wrapping themselves over the body; veiny roots targeting hardly flesh as much as the nerves and spine.

"Gods' sacred toilet!!" A Huckleberrien officer—denoted by his short pinkish cape—so shouted amidst a sea of screams and shouts; of fire and shots. "Stay away from the plants! Stay away! Do not bother shooting what cannot be killed!"

Almost immediately as soon as the first proboscis-tipped vine had struck its first enthralled victim, a panic erupted. Soldiers began to fire with their rifles, stab and slice with their daggers, to save either themselves or their comrades. However, neither the gelatin-like floraforms nor their horrid appendages were particularly affected by the penetrating lead, even if such had made them bleed.

As chaos devoured, the Protector of Smiles had frozen in place, half-trembling as if to vainly hide her panic. The mist had changed, she could both see and sense… There was a throbbing pulse of glow in the ugly dust and choppy particulates, one that felt charged and energetic yet static. Tingling stings and bites itched at her very soul, as if the whole sphere was a single…waking eye. Fog and mist of purplish rot spread and subsumed.

"IN SKY GOD'S GLORY, JUST FALL BACK HERE! NOW!" the officer continued to shout, attempting to bring order. "Fall back to the entrance and form a line! Two-row formation!"

The Huckleberrien soldiers, seeing the futility, began to fall back to the officer and form their formation.

The Citadel guardsmen, meanwhile, had stepped themselves around the startled yet stoic undersecretary, Novea still nearby although completely bemused… Her corvid-masked eyes flung about as if still trying to figure out…what was even befalling.

"We need to get the undersecretary out of here!" the captain guardsman so shouted; he grabbed the undersecretary's arm, pulling her away. They rushed to the still open entrance.

Yet unbeknownst to them, throughout all of this and perhaps even before, luminescent veins had begun to root themselves into the thick and circular door's stone; thin fleshy vines, freshly sprouted and flaking with corrosive particulates, wrapped themselves around the entry contraption itself…

And in sudden shrieks of cracking rock and bending millennia-aged metal, that vaultish door of thick disk-shaped stone was forced closed in a way that damaged the opening mechanism, effectively breaking off from the contraption as it was wrenched in place. Uneven and tilted, there were gaps through which mist and veins could…potentially worm themselves out.

Everyone else, however, was trapped.

"Oh fuck… Oh fuck!" Novea panicked as they all ground to a halt, she herself having flinched from the sound of that harsh twisting closure… Truly, the amount of strength that must have been involved to break that entrance closed… "Raven Mother, what is even happening?!" Indeed, she was terrified. "What is this shit?!"

"Fortune's blessing…" The captain's panicked breaths muttered. He looked to his men, intaking breath after breath… "Push!" he shouted in desperate command; "Push the door! It's been severed!" Indeed, he had immediately noticed… "It's at an angle bent our ways! We can grip! So, all of us, push!"

The thirty-five Citadel guardsmen rushed to the vaultish door lodged in frame; taking whatever grips they reasonably could, they began to so push and huff and push and pull… Yet so heavy and massive was this thick circle of a door, it barely budged. However, they could hear arriving on the other end…frantic soldiers, having been alerted to that screeching close which had shaken the tunnel. Realizing what the guardsmen were doing, they joined in from their side, attempting to push the door through collective strength.

The undersecretary meanwhile had backed herself away, Novea staying with her… "Alrightly…" she began to say, breaths heavy, her mind in panic, yet she managed to keep herself visibly calm and…collected; "I see your point… Frivolous, this is absolutely not…"

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The some eighty-nine remaining Huckleberrien soldiers, concurrently, had made their formation. A defensive line positioned in front and at a slight distance from the undersecretary and her men, organized in two rows: front kneeling, back standing; firearms readied and prepared. The officer, of course, stood directly behind. Their immediate concern was less the door and more…imminent threats.

Yet…

Silence.

It became silent, beyond the noise of breaths and huffing pants. The flower-lookalikes had abated, their violet glow having become obfuscated by the growing corrosive mist which encircled. They could hear the sounds of sprouting, splitting like replicating worms, not out from the ground as much as from the corpses of their fallen.

They waited, as if this whole sphere was waiting with them.

Quietly. Silently… The thickening purplish fog surrounding all surroundings, clouding and shrouding.

But then…

Something in the mist… Moving. Approaching…

The Protector, having had mustered herself to return to Novea and the undersecretary, so gripped her shield's handle with a tightened clench. The tension, the panic, the fear…bled from her breaths; the blue outline in her irises seemed to flicker ever so slight. "[It is here… It is here…]" she murmured over and over… "[It approaches…]"

"Huh? What do we do??" Novea's quiet voice cracked, gripping her revolving rifle though with shaking hands.

Step. Step. Step.

Step after step, a silhouette emerged amidst the mist, as if having formed from it even though they were always separate—simply hidden.

The Citadel guardsmen stopped their pointless pushing, turning their heads as they began to hear…

Clap… Clap… Clap.

Clap after clap, as if impressed; as if entertained; as if…taunting. Stepping into front gaze of all who beheld was a figure so shrouded by that purplish choppy mist, to stare was to only see a nebulous blob of noise-ridden dust… Novea was immediately reminded of her own…shadow magic.

"Well, well…" a murky voice so spoke; "What a grand collection of souls to ring dinner's bell."

With a single loud clap, as if in an intentional display of show, the all-surrounding mist so gusted in a dissipating wave, not disappearing as much as scattering and redistributing about, revealing to all their sights once more the luminescent sphere around, in addition to…

"[Ah…]" The Protector gritted her jittering teeth… "[Thus, the beast shows his fangs at last…]"

Indeed…

A slender man quite tall, wrapped around his waist being a towel for a toga; skin so pale, his face was narrow, his chin long and his nose pointy, though his ears far pointier…longer than even an elf's; his blueish hair was spiky, and his spectacle-wearing eyes glowed with a potent purplish gleam, the outline surrounding his irises so strong… And his wide grin revealed his fangs.

"[I see now…]" The Protector stared as if the nebulousness of her prior senses had become clear… "[A spreader of rot… A creature of blight… A devourer of souls…]"

"…soul eater?" Novea, disconcerted, blurted in translation as she glanced at the Protector…

And, indeed, the undersecretary did not like the sound of that… "Ah… Alrightly…" she just replied, suppressing her trembling fear.

This spreader of rot motioned ever towards them, a forward walk almost elegant. The soldiers immediately took their sharp aim, the officer's hand holding high and steady.

"Here I lay, forty-days hitherto concealed…" he began to speak, his voice unnaturally fluent and almost songful; "Watching from shadow, hidden as told by them… Yet now, patience exhausted, myself here I be, revealed." With one final stomp, he halted in place, being close enough.

"What by Creation's will are you?!" the Huckleberrien officer demanded; "In the name of Duke Noelfears the Twentieth, we, his loyal troops of his rightful and oned Great Huckleberry Dutchy, demand answers, abominable monster!"

"…this is no time for theatrics." the undersecretary muttered from the grit of her teeth.

Yet this abominable creature of blight only grinned before bending forth in a…respecting bow. "You honor me, representative of your duke." He turned his gaze upright to him. "Shame, that Alweny Noelfears could not be here himself… Long overwaiting, I have, to issue him my rebuke." He inhaled, his gaze shifting… "To be given great prey for patience, was their promission… But…I feel now… Yes, from this tune within… The demand is for reparation."

This was not supposed to be his moment of revelation. Tell him to desist immediately.

This devourer of souls suddenly snarled, his outlined eyes momentarily flickering in slight magenta. "No!" He shook his head with a growl. "I shall not! I have followed with grace, allowed them to desecrate this place, and yet now…they seek to destroy this kingdom? No… Not again! It shall not happen again!"

Hm… Fascinating.

He breathed a large breath. "And I cannot stand…to have, any longer, such a sight… Tarnishing me without respite." He turned his eyes to a particular soul standing behind that line, licking his scowling fangs. "To dare bring such an ass, such a face, to taunt me… Agh! So bleak!!" he screeched; "Forced to stare in mist… Yet of her who haunts me still, she reminds so close, so neat… Haha!" His back recoiled in a backward spring, arms dangling wide-open as he laughed. "Whatever promised prey, I care for not! She is the one! Yes! I have found the one…"

Novea…turned to the uniformed undersecretary. "…he's totally speaking of you."

"Mhm…" The undersecretary slowly nodded… "Yeah… Why did I come down here… Haha…" She tried to laugh. "I guess I made for good bait…hah…" She was terrified, utterly. "We finally…caught him, the fetishist… Hah…"

The laughing walker of grim sprung himself upright in a rebound, looking at them who were in front. "Give me your females," he so plainly spoke, "and… Yes, the tunnel, to destroy you seek. Fine… That I shall permit… I would have no need for it. Forever between our kingdoms, yes, there shall be peace… If reparations given for my stolen…collection." There was an almost saddened tear in his eye… "They told me to leave their thumbs, as if to tease… Oh, so treasured they were… I seek reprieve for ease."

One of the standing soldiers glanced at the officer… "…do we shoot him?"

The officer found no further point in this. His steady held hand dropped in issued ordinance. "Fire!"

Click snap bang.

From a volley of smoke and fire came lead whistling through the air; bullets passed, struck the ground, and pierced through his flesh—his stomach, his chest, his neck, and even one to his head…yet merely cracking the tough skull. His body went limp and fell down, dead on the spot…

Or so it seemed.

For, to their agape surprise, as if a skunk spraying its putrid cloud, dust-choppy purplish murk, barely radiant, flowed out as if peeled from his spine and nerves, enveloping his body. The murk-covered figure throbbed with the most abhorrent of sounds, as if skin and muscle were being stitched anew.

The outlined glow of his lifeless eyes heightened though did not ignite, before, with a final twitch to the neck, palp to the chest, the enveloping purplish cloud dissipated away… And, with a resurrecting gulp of air, the walker of grim casually lunged himself back up…

"…you must be jesting, Fortune…" the officer muttered.

He gazed into the bemused eyes of the horrified soldiers with a most amused grin so wide. "Hah… Hah…" He sucked in such air as he made those two 'hahs'. "You cannot comprehend… The knowings, the powers, given to me…from that…deal with an empty abyss." His glowing purplish eyes wandered astray… "For what schemes, I know not… But…" His drifting eyes yet then sprung right back to them… "I realize now, in a twist… I care for not, for…Yes, I can feel the sung song of life itself—"

Yet the soldiers, having reloaded, fired another volley mid-monologue. The bullets pierced and struck; he yet again went limp… Only for that same exact process to repeat itself a second time, faster. In a cloud of murk, the creature found himself yet again standing up from death with a grin.

"Hah…hah… Yes… I feel it…" And he simply continued. "In this…kingdom resurrected, haunts a restless whisper, a yearning tune…for me, indeed… A queen in need. Kingdom old," his grin turned into a scowl, "butchered and slaughtered… Like father, like brother… Yet only for pity for one… Shackled then to the cage of woman who found so much delight in playing, and I loved her so; I desired her so—"

Mid-monologue, the soldiers again unleashed yet another volley, shooting him down dead and limp.

"It might not kill him, but at least it'll shut him up!" the officer justified.

And that same splurge of purplish murk and blighted dust so went, whence he stood up with again that grin. "The more you slay, the more my flesh turns to vine." he so spoke; "A step closer to becoming divine… Ha…hah…hah." With such inhaling breaths, he exhaled an almost growl. "Shame. Your replies issue without cease. Though now… I feel this, the tune, this…sense, demands… Ah, I was wrong… There shall be no peace."

He stepped forth as if caught by another's string. His voice took a breath, and…he began to sing…

A hum so strange… An almost lullaby that struck ears and tingled spines, as if resonating…with that which was imbued deeper within. The luminescence pulsed and flowers shined, blackened vines alighting with bands of new glow, as the mist…joined in choir.

"Fire!"

Yet interrupted it was, as a fourth volley of lead came striking. The slender man was felled again, pierced and sliced. Motionless, he laid lifeless as before…

However, unlike the last times, his outlined eyes flickered and so flickered…before, in a turn, igniting. A purplish, blueish, almost violet radiance overrode his irises as so revealing itself was… That signa engraved, yet one different from that of theirs—not that signa of the arcane they knew… A sigil into which to stare could pierce their essence with an epistemic horror—a nebulous terror.

The mist and murk of particulate dust shifted in kind, as if in reply. Becoming more radiant and visible, the violet-turning shroud formed streams that pooled down from above, latching onto his being; engulfed, he was, indeed… A corrosive shell of blackened violet and rusting blight; essence ravenous and unstable.

As though being pulled by invisible strings tethering upright, the engulfed body levitated up. It twitched as if joints were being contorted and cracked, bones being stretched… Sizzling as if flesh was being mulched and remade… Convulsing…as if metamorphizing.

When the corrosive-dusty cloud finally cleared itself away, revealed were monstrous feet that so touched down onto the ground, clawed toes having fused into three.

Bulkier, fatter, taller, arms longer and larger hands sharply clawed, skin greyer than pale; wet luminescent 'spikes' protruded from his permanently hunched spinal column; his skull remained largely the same size, yet his jaws had expanded, fangs far longer. And with his towel-toga having been dissolved away, his grotesque…'tail', scaled proportionate to the new bulk, dangled exposed as if he was more animal… As if more gargoyle than man…

Indeed, as if a beast.

The officer and soldiers stared with quivers in their jaws. The Protector stood frozen, breaths covertly shivering from the sight beheld. Novea was trembling, shaking, speechless and stunned in mind. The undersecretary was dead silent, her guardsmen behind…staring with dread.

With such stomps, the beast took two steps forth. He snarled a grin; through spectacles now tacitly fused to his nose's bridge, his ignited eyes glared into them, spreading their shudders from spine into essence. Cracking his nascently metamorphosed joints and limbs, still fresh and wet, he opened his jaws. "I see now… Yes, I am their retribution… The king of this kingdom! And…I shall have my queen!"

The captain's soul sunk within. "…defend the undersecretary…" So swiftly, he and the other guardsmen withdrew from the wrenched vaultish door; they rushed to form a defensive ring around the undersecretary, drawing their pistols and swords.

"F… F-FIRE!" the officer meanwhile screamed; his soldiers, panicking, fired another volley.

The whistling bullets went lancing, striking the beast in full… Yet so bulkier his hide and thickened his muscles, the piercing lead had no effect. In the most abhorrent of fashions, cells and skin regrew as if cancerous masses.

The beast cackled and casually stepped back. "Ha…ha… You see, they gave me…this realization—of me, of us… A dance, they said, of kin from long before…" And, indeed, he began to…twirl a dance. "And with it, a song, and from it…a hum merged. To breathe into form…what has become with me, still there…submerged."

With a gulping breath, his beastly voice…pierced with yet another…strange hum.

A melody so low yet could shake the mist. And, as if attuned, flowing out from his rampant essence, strung into form…

Thirty silhouettes.

Thirty feminine-shaped specters, faceless and bodyless… Misty, composed from only that blackened violet dust and corrosive rust. Victims hardly returned, for these were no wispy ghosts or plasmic phantoms—merely mimics pulled astring by his glutinous essence puppeteering.

These thirty specters stared down the bemused, hovering; their murky arms reshaped into wavy tendrils… Before, in a dashing surge, they all began to rush.

"Never fear… Never scream nor cry… You will become one with my kingdom of death and sing our song…everlasting."

[--] …we perhaps went overboard with his abilities. However, nothing we provided had anything to do with… Everything else. [--] Essence host transcendence does not explain this rapid acceleration. Indeed, it almost seems…he is being… Nudged by something else.

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