Chapter 206

◈ Chapter 206:

The feeling of growth was as usual, intense, and Rain shuddered as the last of it slipped  through his body causing his joints to pop and bones to lengthen, a straining rising sensation that made him gasp, back arching until felt like it was just too much, like he was going to break under the tension built up within him.

But then with a sigh the growth finished and he eased back down to the floor, chest rising and falling in shallow motions as he struggled to shake the incredibly addictive feeling off, at the same time as trying not to breathe too hard, his lungs still painfully raw.

After a moment he managed to pull himself together and sat up.

He was in the arena, a place that had been a killing field for monsters, their bodies piled up against the walls like violent debris as the levelers farmed their levels, taking what they paid for, the monsters merely discarded leftovers for the experience.

Or at least they had been piled up, now all that remained was a coating of blood that stretched from one arena wall to the other, a crimson sheet over stone, only broken up by scattered rubble and gouges that marked where Rain had taken in his fresh growth, clawing at the ground as it ripped through him.

At a rough estimate he thought he'd gained an inch and a half of height, not a lot considering the sheer amount he had devoured, but it was ever slower to make gains now. The feeling of being stronger was another matter and he flexed and curled his digits, seeing how much pressure he could apply. Definitely considerably stronger. There had been many dead levelers retrieved from beneath the rubble, or found littered through the many hallways, and the addition of the levelers with the monsters had piled on the potential.

Not all the levellers had been in the arena's structure when Quistis had collapsed it. Two dozen levelers, the remainder of the Abattoir gang had fled into the black stone ruins. But their way out from the cavern had apparently been blocked off, and without Quistis they had no way of escape. Instead they had come for him, attempting an assassination as he ate, assuming he was vulnerable.

The knives had come fast, striking like snake bites from the shadows, lashing down and darting into his back and arms, laced with deathly toxins and vicious venoms. Unfortunately for the assassins their blades failed to pierce his body, or at least only barely pierce his skin, lacking the depth to deliver what the blades were coated in.

They hadn't stood a chance after that, and Rain barely paused as he went from eating the monsters to eating his assassins, their blades brushed aside as his predation cut them apart. Those wearing armour were more troublesome, but Rain's lungs had healed significantly, and he was no longer impaired and half delirious, and once in his grip they came apart quickly, torn to shreds by a ravenous wolf.

By the time he was done eating what little poisons that had caught him with had been absorbed, devoured by his body along with their wielders.

His drifting gaze came across something that had given him pause when he'd found it sorting through the mounds of dead monsters. It was the only thing in the arena that he hadn't eaten, a peculiarity discarded amongst the dead.

It was an egg. A large egg. Two foot tall. And its surface instead of being an eggshell white was a smooth reflective gold. When he had found it it had been covered in blood and gore hiding its appearance below, which probably explained why it hadn't been noticed and picked up.

He pondered where it had come from. One of the deceased monsters? Maybe. It didn't seem likely it came from a leveler, it wasn't like lugging around a giant egg was convenient, or normal. Maybe it was part of the gang's various treasures? Or maybe it was something Quistis had made on a whim, a 'fake' material destined to break down into its original substance if she didn't maintain it.

He leaned down and picked the egg up. The thing was surprisingly heavy in his paws, in fact, it was shockingly heavy, as though the thing wasn't an egg at all but solid metal all the way through. It was heavy enough that few other than himself could have lifted the thing. Perhaps that explained why it had been left alone.

Very strange, but then maybe the simplest answer was the right answer, that is, this was just one of Quistis's many whimsical creations.

Unsure what else to do, he decided to go in search of Red. It looked like treasure therefore the treasurer could deal with it and it wouldn't be his problem any more.

A trio of monsters were peeking around a hole broken through the wall, one of the few ways into the arena pit. The blue kobold, Beryl, and two others he didn't know. Of course the moment he looked their way they spooked like startled deer and leapt back, one of them letting out a small scream as they fled.

…He wasn't that bad was he? He looked down at his body, yet again coated from head to toe in gore. Okay maybe he was a little bad. He mentally added finding a cleaning potion to the to do list and ducked into the ruin proper.

—

Lyra arranged the table. She had dragged it from under a partly collapsed wall half covered in rubble. One of the legs was a little crooked, and the surface wobbled dangerously, but it would do for the purposes she intended. The small room she had picked was private and away from the others or any prying eyes or ears, here they would not be seen or overheard.

It was time to do something she had vowed to do for some time.

It was time for a reckoning…. Or maybe an intervention?

Either way she pulled out the chair and turned to her target.

Opal stood leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed, looking like she really didn't want to be there.

"Ahem. Opal would you please come sit down for a bit. We need to have a talk."

Opal frowned hearing those words. Those were words a gobbo like herself never wanted to hear.

"What? why? I haven't done anything wrong..."

"Please, this won't take long. And then I'll make it up to you!"

Opal pouted, but then after a moment strode forward and flopped into the chair. Her arms still crossed over her rounded belly.

"So, what do you want sheepy? You know I could be doing really important things right now, like finding more stuff to feed Rain. Getting those levelers with the knives to chase me all the way to the arena is not enough."

"Well, you know, it's just you've been acting a little… it's just, you seem… a little upset… with what happened with the centaur person… and, uh…"

"And you aren't? He killed that gobbo like it was nothing and then wiped her brains off his hoof like he just stepped on something nasty," said Opal, her voice low and angry, almost a growl.

"Oh-! That wasn't what I meant—!"

"What is there to understand then?!"

"You just seem… different… now. It bothered you. It's like you… really really hate levelers."

Opal gestured broadly at the ceiling.

"Have you seen the city above us? It makes Lynthia look like nothing. Your city sheepy. I saw street food stalls that let you stab to death a chained up gobbo while you eat lunch."

"I know, but this got to you, it really got to you, clearly, otherwise you wouldn't be doing this, uh, thing with the 'monster town'."

Opal squinted up at her.

"I've wanted that since Lynthia, I would have gotten it in the orc camp if I hadn't been betrayed."

"But now?"

"Yes now! Have you seen what that lamia can do? It's perfect! If it doesn't work… Then I'll stop. Forever. If I can't make this work then monsters are just hopeless. We all think wrong, too much like a dungeon."

"I'm… not sure I really understand this, uh, dungeon thinking…"

Opal was silent for a moment.

"Imagine you are with your childhood friend. They have a fancy sword in their hand. You have a stick. The both of you are stuck on a tall stone as a bunch of big monsters prowl around the base. You are both dying of thirst and running out of time. What do you do?"

"Well, I'd construct some kind of rudimentary spear by taking the stick and then tying the sword to the end with strips of clothing and then we could stab down at the—"

"You are both completely naked and have no clothes to do that with."

"Uhm, Th-then I would use hair-

"You are both bald and hairless too."

"This… is quite a strange situation to be in… but I guess I would figure something out somehow, maybe throwing the stick and the sword to hopefully distract the big monsters? It has a small chance of working but, maybe?"

"That's what you would do sheepy. Most monsters would wait until their 'friend' wasn't looking then smash the stick over their head, take the sword, then cut their body up into little bits. Then they'd throw the bits one by one, making a line leading away from the pillar ending for all for the big monsters to follow. The big monsters eating away from the tall stone would mean they wouldn't notice anyone climbing down with a brand new fancy sword and sneaking away. I know because that's what I would do… or would have done, and I would have done it even with clothes and hair."

"What? That's not you, you wouldn't do that to your friend," Lyra chuckled nervously.

Opal gave her a flat stare.

Lyra nervously licked her lip.

"Levelers can also be terrible to each other Opal, they kill each other all the time."

"Not like this. All of my brothers and sisters died because they killed each other. One of my sisters was stabbed to death while she slept just 'cause my other sister wanted her tent. You don't even want to know what was done to the runt of my litter, or what our gobbo witch did to us. There was no love there for any of us. I know…"

A darker look appeared on Opal's face, her voice becoming strained, as if struggling to get the words out.

"...In the dungeon, I knew that there was nothing good, at all, anywhere, and every dungeon monster knows, deep down, that life isn't worth living."

Lyra gave her a look of dismay. She was starting to get the impression Opal had deeper scars from the dungeon than she had understood.

"I- I know it's bad but—

"Do you? Tribal monsters can inherit memory and skills from their ancestors. I'm good at scouting and it's how I knew language. Non-tribal monsters have something similar, but weaker."

"Okay? What does that have to do with—"

"We all know! It's not just something we learned, we all know from the very second we're born that life is going to be short, brutal, and miserable no matter what, and no one is going to give a damn about us. Do you know what it's like to know that?"

"Wait, what are you saying? That monsters… inherit behaviour?"

"More like inherit distrust over and over again through endless generations of monsters, and getting worse with each generation." She looked down at her clasped hands on the table and fidgeted. "I think what was supposed to be an advantage to monsters turned into a huge disadvantage. Being trapped in the dungeon like crabs trapped in a pot, instead of cooperating to escape, the distrust just keeps building up forever and ever and everyone is out for themselves..."

"That's what you mean by dungeon thinking? "

"...Partly, it's not like growing up in a dungeon is gonna make you want to trust anyone anyway, better to be ruthless. Stab and steal and live longer is just how things are. The monster that doesn't throw the gobbo next to her into the big monster's jaws doesn't survive."

Lyra scratched her cheek with a finger. "I uh, think I'm starting to see why you want to make this monster town. You saw what Lynthia was like and want that for monsters."

Opal nodded. "I want— No, I need to know if monster's are even capable of that any more, making a town something like a leveler town, a town with actual good things in it and not just shittiness, or if it's just lost forever, monsters too dungeonified to do that anymore."

She stood from the table.

"So are you going to help or not?"

Lyra found herself following after the fiercely determined goblin girl, pulled along in the wake of her sheer will.

Somehow she felt the reckoning hadn't quite worked out as planned.