✥ ▷ Collideoscope: Oblique Memory ◀︎ ✥ [Rough Draft][PG-13 mayb?]

[Snatch Steal]

❇︎

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[spoiler=About]

So this is a story that's gonna be in a book I'm making, and since it's not a commercial project, I trust this forum with the rough batches.

The plot follows a boy known as "the hero" who travels about an unknown world looking for a way out. As he delves deeper, he learns more about not only this world, but the many worlds encompassing him.

It's intended to model a video game, what with bosses at infrequent areas and the mentioning of experience.

It's also extremely short. Sorry about that.

Also sorry for burning your eyes with my god-awful writing style ( u • _ • )

 

[spoiler=0: Orphaned Hopes, Adopted Truths]

 

This tale wants not your investment. It wants only your patience to unfold, and given that, it will hurry along for you.

Revelation 3:10 states, "Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth." Everything seemed to pass in an hour, indeed, since the birth of the hero, the pacifist, the mighty and merciful, and the panopticon, the nightmare, the abyss and loathing. 

In contrast, 1 Peter 5:8 reminds, "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."

Sober minds are hard to come about as of late. Minds in general slip away quicker than they come about. 

Why would a mouse scream at a lion?

 

Well, why not?

 

 

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[spoiler=I: Crown]

 

Just a moment ago, he could have sworn he was somewhere else. He blinked his eyes, stretched his fingers, and leaned into the wind. 

This is the hero.

Grabbing hold of his senses, the hero peered about the plains he found himself in, pressing his hands against the sun above. Trees riddled the verdant landscape, although they stood perfectly still, and no signs of animal life--or human life, for that matter--altered their stance. Eerily, a crater gnawed into the prairie, turning it inside-out, while in the distance, no blue skies punctured the edge of the square perimeter, and a cell tower lied in a heap in the night outside the daylight domain.

Urgency filled the boy's veins, and he stepped backwards, but as he hit an unforeseen obstacle, he spun around; a barrier, rippling to his touch, locked him away from his previously perceived objective, separating his midday from the midnight coating the horizon in void. Peering out through the see-through blue beam, the boy found streetlights flinching under the weight of the sky, exhibiting bits of a paved road.

This was not his home.

Brushing the dust from his sweatshirt, the hero discovered a sign several meters north of him. As he squinted to see its message the hero finally paced near enough to read it:

 

"You'll have to get through them to find me."

 

Scratching the pitch-black hair atop his head, the boy yearned for another answer; unfortunately, the domain compensated with nothing but the smells of pine and smoke. Smoke?

Peering over to the mouth of the adjacent cavern, the hero dove forth on his bare feet, widening his eyes to absorb what little light he could. In the middle of leaping to and fro in the depths of the cave, the hero suddenly felt a glassy surface obstruct his trek. No force the hero exhibited could fell the barrier, despite his various kicks and punches, and he thus conceded defeat.

Promptly, a grumble shook the boy from the inside out, and his knees wilted under his sudden weight. Wiping the sweat from his brow, the hero clambered out of the stone depths and set out to forage for a meal.

Nothing around the hero seemed remotely edible, except for pine cones, although he learned the hard way not to chew them with all his might. Although comfy, the grass likely wasn't the safest thing to munch on.

Irking his aura, a pearly rabbit pranced over to the child, who sat with his legs crossed in agony. Twisting his head to meet the bunny, the hero's hunger made sure his eyes were free to get a glimpse, and with that glimpse, perhaps a cure.

The hero lunged for the creature, only flinging himself into the grass, soon fumbling to keep up the chase with the bunny, hopping about at a breakneck pace. Although limber, the hero knew his prey couldn't run forever--or so he thought, until it managed just that.

All hope seemed lost until the smoky smell from earlier tickled the boy's nose, and his crippled stature blew through the cube with the scent. Following the aroma, the boy stumbled upon a strange-looking toggle attached to the bottom of a tree, and as he grasped the switch, the boy's curiosity pulled the stone to the ground.

Without rhyme or reason, all light instantaneously dissipated. The wind blew the boy’s hair into his face and jabbed his eyes, and as he tossed and turned on the ground, the boy's sweat shifted into lead needles, staking him to the earth, swiveling his stomach upside-down. 

Thrusting himself up from the nightmare, the hero forced his adjustment to the cold shock. Just as before, the sooty sweetness of mutton lured him past peak and valley, corridor and cavern, into a hallway lit with one torch for its entirety. Supposing he may as well use the torch for himself, the hero hoisted it off the wall, but once he dislodged the bottom, the flame cowered into the capsule. With a gasp, he returned the wood to the wall mount, and the flame spouted at him again.

Tiptoeing onward, a misstep earned the hero a moan from the grotto, rising more to life than the hero himself, and chills syphoned the boy's warmth each time he scrabbled past the earth. Just as he approached the end of the corridor, a phlegmy cough coming from a nearby chamber blew the hero back. Gripping the wall with all his might, albeit slipping from his sweat, the hero peered past the corner to find the silhouette of a colossus gorging itself on meat, the likely source of the smell. The chamber, lit with an azure candle, reeked of rotten innards, eliminating the sweetness from the surface. Various furniture carved a way into the dwelling, cracking the walls for rats to escape from. Amid the growls of the beast, snapping ligaments and tearing joints reverberated along the cave's esophagus; soon, the hero would see the belly of the beast.

Word Count: 679

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[spoiler=II: Chokhmah]

With a gulp, the hero tiptoed into the dimly lit chamber, sliding behind the figure that already towered over him. Besides its height, the boy doubted he could even wrap his arms around the beast—not that he would want to, what with the grime that covered it. As the monster stood, burped, and sighed, the hero dashed behind a counter-shaped rock, getting a glimpse at the monster’s face before it trampled off to its closet; the poster child for agony. Its eyes twitched as it slurped the excess grease from its chin, or wiping whatever it wasn’t inclined to seep up on its floppy arm. With a grunt, it hauled itself up from the annex, bringing an entire bull’s corpse with him prior to slamming it onto a table-like rock. Still waking up, the giant sunk his teeth into the rot, tearing off the bovine's skin with its four arms. The monster's jaws slid through the carcass, ripping the bones off of his supper with a single yank. 

Within minutes, the beast took off to gather the next body. Although he wanted to see more, the boy could hardly stand the smell of the feast. Alas, as he stepped away from his hiding place, the hero slid across the dome on mixed grease and innards right into the monster's cushiony torso. The crunching stopped, and the beast straightened himself. "Huh?" It inquired, turning to see the hero.

At this point, the boy's heart expanded to fill his chest and contracted to a pinpoint within nanoseconds. In a fever, he dashed about the cavern for an escape, knocking over copper cookware and bits of the furniture in the process, but his original exit had vanished; it solidified the moment he took his eyes off of it. As the giant climbed up on his limbs, the hero, backed into a corner, reached around and flung rocks at him. They hardly phased the beast, who merely protected his face and groaned. "Hey," he muttered, "don't be like that." Sprouting a grin as the boy ran out of stones, he patted his belly and followed up, "I'm full."

The hero’s breathing slowed, and he regained his footing, grasping the counter for assistance. “Name’s Butch,” the monster introduced himself, extending his fourth hand in truce. Although the hero preferred not to get his own hand more slippery than it already was, he compensated and grasped the giant's finger.

Butch chuckled at the hero’s reluctance to comply, shrugging both shoulders. “Sorry,” he drawled, “nobody here to impress, so my hygiene sort of slips.” The hero couldn’t argue with that, and decided to sit with Butch for a little while. “Got a name?” Butch inquired, scratching his back. Unable to use his brain after his crisis, the hero could only mimic the monster’s shrug from earlier, causing Butch to snort at the accuracy. "I'll take what I can get," the giant whistled. 

With the hero almost forgetting about his hunger, his stomach's growl insisted upon sustenance. Poking the beast in his second forearm, the boy directed Butch to his own belly.

“Well,” Butch theorized, “I reckon I could share a little.”

Butch and the hero shared rather opposite opinions on “little” portions. With a grunt, Butch slammed a rack of ribs twice the boy's size onto the table; the hero doubted Butch used any utensils outside of his strapping chops, of which he did not own, doubling the challenge. With a huff, the boy tried pulling some of the meat from the bone, but it felt like his hands would fall off from the cold if he stayed for too long. Fuming, the hero pressed his legs along the framework and wrenched a rib bone with all his might, causing Butch’s face to contort in bemusement--the giant found himself unable even to swallow in fascination with the hero's effort. With a final grunt, the bone flew off, sending it and the hero careening into the cave wall, and, despite the bump forming on his head, the hero gleefully gorged himself on the meat, savoring each nibble as it melted in his mouth. The smell only wished it knew the taste; its savory skin fizzed straight into the boy's brain, and as he swallowed, the dark meat poured a bucket of velvet over his insides. "You're awfully feisty," Butch snickered.

In what felt like moments but really were ages, the two filled up on leftovers. Butch stood, stretched, and yawned, then walked toward another opening in the cavern. The hero, a bit too full, slouched in his seat. “You coming?” The giant questioned. “We’ve got places to be. Er, I do, at least. I can't put my finger on where you're headed.”

Immediately, the room fell silent; not even the whispers of the cave dared intrude. “Where ARE you going?” Butch followed up, hoping not to be rude. Misunderstanding and unconcerned, the hero only stood and patted Butch on the side—he couldn’t reach any farther up. Wincing, Butch laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. “I…guess I can roll with this?”

Surrounded by the cave’s dimness, the pair traversed various globular cavities connected by narrow tunnels for longer than they ate, with the boy occasionally hopping up on Butch’s shoulders to ride piggyback. The stroll flowed smoothly for a while, what with Butch claiming more victims for his stockpile, although once they passed a particular threshold in the cave, the hero couldn’t even hear the whispers anymore.

"I get the feeling the cat got your tongue," Butch attempted, "so it ought to be best that I fill you in a little. Well, I've been living here since who knows when, just trying to manage my bit of munchies to get by. Not a whole lot of stuff to munch on, though, considering the pile I got back at the base is from a whole month of foraging."

"Yeah," he yawned, "it ain't easy living here, but I ain't got any other options, really. Leon'd beat me good if he caught me out of line. I dunno where he gets all of his energy, but...I give him credit for being conniving."

Suddenly, the front half of a dog leapt up from behind a boulder. Froth splattered the ground as it bayed, baring its teeth and thrashing about either side of the cave. Mindlessly, it stopped in between, flaunting the blood spouting from its ribs, and admiring the spelunkers' shock.

"Hold on to your hat," Butch demanded, drawing a blade taller even than him from his back and thrusting it into the earth. As the rotten canine galloped towards him, the beast dislodged his cutter, sending the prong on the end through the dog's snout and pinning it to the ceiling. Holding this position for a few moments, Butch watched several of the dog's vital organs splatter across the floor before sending it plummeting to the ground and thrusting his reaper clean through it.

"Holy cannoli," Butch shuddered, sheathing his sword, "those things still gimme the heebie-jeebies."

The two stayed silent for what felt like hours on end after the attack, the memory of the carcass, now in quarters, seeping through their sanity and into their nightmares. Butch probably got over it quickly, but the horror jarred the boy to the core--even remembering the dog's brutal demise sent sweat across his body. Somehow, though, the hero felt the incident would make him stronger, or at least ready. An unlit road is harder to traverse than a rocky one, and the more streetlights he lit, the lighter the sky grew.

With the brunt of their trip over, the two hikers reached a dead end; a globe similar to Butch's home, minus the furniture or closet. “Well," Butch huffed, "That's all she wrote."

The boy’s legs ached from the trek, and he wondered how Butch’s seemingly didn’t, given how much more weight the monster carried. Making himself out for a fool, the hero had not even calculated Butch's brand in his weight.

“Ready to hit the hay?” Butch quizzed.

Unblinking, the hero forced his hands down from reaching out to the sword. “Kid?” Butch wondered aloud. “You in there?”

Jerking his head away from the cutter, the hero trotted over to the northernmost wall of the dome, pressing his hands all about it. He then turned to Butch, wearing his best poker face and pointing upwards.

Unexpectedly, Butch frowned. “You…wanna get out of here, don't you?"

The hero nodded. 

The cave’s silence fell onto Butch like a mallet, and a panicked bump began growing on his head. “R-really?” The monster barely managed, backing away. “I thought…we were pals. Didn't I just save you back there?”

Despite his size and Butch's misdemeanor, the hero stomped his foot, and forced his finger to the sky. He would not have it.

"It's been ages, all for nothing?" Butch unfurled. "I can feed you, I promise, just don't leave me here, all alone again. Once is enough. You don't have to go through with this game."

The hero shook his head. Up.

Clenching his fists, Butch’s forehead furled, and he grasped his stomach. “Ugh,” the monster groveled, “I should have known. You never really cared about anyone but yourself, huh? You and her screwed everyone, you know. And yet, you think…I’m a monster, don’t you? I’m a freak. That’s all there is to me, like these arms are my fault.”

Readying his arms, the giant stretched his arms, dropped his legs, and brandished his blade. “You wanna see a monster, you fox? I’ll show you a monster. You get three seconds before you're seeing nothing!”

Propping himself up on his legs and primary arms, Butch kicked the dust away from his feet, and, with a mighty roar, flung himself forward, thrusting his reaper straight through the wall. Underneath Butch’s quaking body, the hero shoved his feet into Butch’s gut, sprinkling sweat and grease all about himself, but not moving the monster at all.

With a huff, Butch returned to his original stance. He shook his head a little, breezed over the room, then finally saw his sword lodged into the rock and the boy quaking below him.

"Oof, my head," Butch groaned, wobbling a good deal. Processing the situation, he finally sat down in front of the hero, holding his head in his hands. "I'm...so sorry about going ham, kid," he apologized. "I've just been missing someone, and I don't want to miss anyone else, and I...ain't had it in me to think straight for 978 years."

Accepting the apology, the hero crawled next to Butch, the two each crossing their legs. "Yep, I counted. You know what that's like?" The giant inquired. "To care about someone so much that you'd do anything just to see 'em in one piece, then cutting them in half just trying to keep them safe?"

Although the boy did not recognize the feeling, he sensed Butch's pain, going as far as to wonder if he himself would experience it in due time.

The beast leaned back, his arms serving as a pillow. "I had a feeling you'd show up sometime. A shame I've been lying to myself the whole millennium I waited. Oh, yeah; I doubt it, but can you tell me anything about a fellow named Pluto?"

Unfortunately, the hero shook his head no, and splashed doubt from his face onto Butch's already soaked attitude. "Eh, that's alright. We were buds for a while, but then...well, he couldn't handle the experiments like anybody else."

The boy put on his best question face. Sighing, Butch slouched on his back, unprepared to explain. "You know that tantrum I just had?" He asked rhetorically. "Imagine that, but no wake-up calls, no relent, and no redemption. Inflict pain only because there's pain to inflict."

The hero whistled in surprise.

"I know," Butch replied, "and that's not even the worst of it."

The two stood up, and Butch lead them back the way they came. "You'll never get outta here," he quavered.

Shooting up, the boy fired a gaze at Butch's back. "You'll never get outta here," the giant repeated, "until you knock me off."

Retracting his gaze, the boy's head began to throb. How could he kill the one who took to feeding him, and saved his life? Not only could he not will himself to do it, but he could not imagine how anyone could topple a creature as unsurmountable as Butch to begin with.

By the time the two returned to Butch's dwelling, the hero felt stronger, but only a forced strength, a fake strength, or someone else's strength. Butch plopped down on a chair, stretching his arms in several positions. Yawning, he proclaimed, "I dunno about you, but I'm pooped. Night, little fella. See you in the morning."

Still wearing his facade, the boy gestured for the way out, but Butch slumped over amid his sopor the moment he hit the table. Frightened, the boy ran over to Butch and shook his arm vigorously. The giant blinked, then groaned into his own arm. "Gimme a break," he whined, "I gotta recharge my batteries."

Unrelenting in his shaking, the hero knew he needed the way out.

Brushing the boy away, Butch turned to him and grimaced. “Alright, alright,” he whined, “I’m up. What do you want?”

The hero pointed upwards.

Barely able to keep his cool, the giant insidiously rose from his slumber. After the nightmare we just pushed through, this kid still wants to get on my bad side, Butch thought. Clambering up from his seat, the monster's entire body hung to the earth as he rose. “Off we go,” he muttered.

After a few minutes of walking, the chamber Butch led the boy to imbued a different aura than any other the hero had traversed before. From the moment he stepped into it, the hero felt his chest pulsate, his heart melt, and his feet quiver. A heat singed the bottoms of his bare feet, although the hero tried his best to mask the ache, and the sultriness glazed the walls, lined with pillars lit by dim flames, while the satin carpet charred the boy's angst to a crumbly black.

Holding the boy back, Butch paced over to the door ensconced at the end of the hallway, lit by ruby flames. The mouth of the room clenched its teeth like it were a monster itself, while the cylindrical ceiling housed a row of steaming chains, glazed with hellfire. Although he saw so much to be afraid of, the hero held tight to his consciousness.

“Listen,” Butch choked, wiping the sweat from his brow, “I know we haven’t spent a whole lifetime together or anything, but I can’t keep you here forever like I've tried.” He clenched his four fists and took a knee. “You taught me something really important; that I can’t keep living like this, just keeping myself alive, trying to dust off answers that I already shattered a long time ago. Those are all antiques. Even I’ve become an antique."

Snarling, Butch drew his cutter. “But I can’t just be the one to learn from you. You gotta prove to me that you won’t just get knocked off by a dog.” He readied himself on his quadrupedal stance, brandishing his mincer maliciously.

The boy wheezed, not only from the threat, but from the intense heat. Butch prepared this trap the all along, didn’t he? He knew the hero would not be used to this hell oven, and just needed it to do the poor child in.

Hardly able to walk from his sweat, the hero scanned the chamber for something to protect himself. A moment later, Butch began his charge, plummeting towards the hero. Managing to slip away at just the right moment, the hero forced Butch to lodge himself into the wall, praying for his own lungs not to burst, but although he disabled Butch, the boy found himself at a loss unarmed. 

Fortunately, a spark caught the boy's eye as the beast squirmed: Butch’s cleaver, snug in a holster on his waist. Dashing with all his might, the hero plunged into the giant’s side, snatching the knife by the handle and skidding in front of Butch on one knee. With a grimace, the hero elicited a tremble from the monster, swinging his chopper around Butch’s stomach, lacing the monster’s belly with mixed sweat and blood. Fuming, the monster thrusted his palm into the boy’s face, grasping it mightily; “You little pest!” He growled, putting more and more force into his grip. "I remember what you did. Why didn't you just let Leon have her?"

Pushing himself through the sound of his skull cracking, the hero flung the cleaver straight into Butch's face, releasing himself to the grill’s floor as a cascade of vitals flooded from the monster's eye. Despite the damage the hero dealt, Butch didn’t scream; he only huffed, reclaiming his blade, patching the wound with his hand, and chuckling from his gut. “Well, aren’t you feisty. Any more oomph behind that, and it would have tickled.”

The hero stood on his last legs, and he couldn’t decipher what Butch had planned for him. Through the mugginess, the hero's legs turned to anchors. Wincing, the boy grasped his chest, gasping for air, tumbling to the ground, and, through melting eyes, he spotted Butch smothering himself in blood. “It’s been a while since someone’s gotten me to bleed like this. Not that it’s much of a chore.” Suddenly, the blood turned to obsidian; “I’ve actually come to enjoy it.”

Crackling, the stony fluid soon encased Butch from head to toe. “You think that dog is going to haunt you?” Butch argued. “I’ll eat him for breakfast, and you for supper."

Once the casing completed itself, Butch’s body melted to molasses, and steam poured from the glop’s core, filling the chamber with opaque haze. Chattering his teeth, the boy clenched his sides as chills scratched the tears streaming down his face, swaying as cackles bounced about the smog. Any escape plan deteriorated, and any hope melted.

With a growl, the fog cleared, and the boy’s incubi swathed before him in a single being; Butch mutated into a behemoth, sprouting a row of ivory tusks from his slobbering maw. His sable fur clotted and furled, and his glowing red eyes bled ink onto the char below. With a huff, the behemoth thrusted his tusks into the earth, rupturing a path to the boy. Pulsing with adrenaline, the hero ran back to the exit, and as black flames poured out from the fissure, the boy jammed himself into the wall, holding tight to his satchel.

Since when did he have a satchel?

Digging ravenously for an answer, the hero unearthed a lens no bigger or smaller than his own eye. He jerked his foot away from the blaze before him, and the boy plastered this newfound device to his face, falling to his knees as it thrusted a pin through his skull—literally.

The world turned black, and he gazed into an insidious swirl that captivated his fear.

“Play with me,” an unheard voice beckoned in his head. "You have so much untapped potential.”

As a migraine overtook him, the rush of intense pain boiled over the hero. Unable to handle the inferno that smoldered his brain, he unleashed a bellow tenacious enough to put out the flames cornering him; however, even as the heat dissipated and the behemoth’s tusks shattered, his screams continued. At the peak of his volume, the hero wavered the room's foundation, and a massive boulder toppled onto the beast from above, letting in the sunlight and letting out the fog.

Finally, the ache fizzed away, and the hero regained his vision. Butch’s metamorphosis dissipated as well, as he lied on the floor, clean in half.

Bawling, the boy dashed over to the giant, pressing his hands against Butch’s only remaining arm--the others popped off and lay under the rubble. Even as his body lay mutilated, Butch could only crack a smile at the child. “I’m so proud of you,” he barely managed. “You’re learning so fast.” With a wheeze, Butch laid his palm on the boy’s chest, admiring his heartbeat. “Keep that one going for me, would you? You've got a job to do. I trust you more than anyone I've ever known, and now I know why."

Forcing down the lump in his throat, the hero wiped away his tears and nodded. This escape wasn’t just for him anymore; he had to do it for Butch, and for Butch’s lost friend.

As the room’s mouth unfastened, the hero grinned at the smell of smoke.

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[spoiler=III: Binah]

The moment the hero stepped through the door, he found himself in the same shadow as before with his lens. “Welcome to Collide OS,” the lens narrated, albeit in a different voice; an audible one. “Your Collideoscope is prepared to install customization software after a short update. Please wait.”

A helix of lights ignited and spun about the hero's spotlight that sparked down upon him, and his ear rang from the hum of the lens. Screeching to a halt, a ding stationed the fluorescence, and the device spoke once again: “Customizations complete. Interpreting data.”

Gradually, the lights gyrated, finally halting after the lens computed. “Data transfer successful. You earned 108,479 Experience Points. You have reached Level 11 and have acquired 108,539 Experience Points. Your most recent Experience Point increase was at 12:37 this morning, upon the defeat of Butch the Glutton Swine. Current Temperature: 242.04 degrees. Your vector appears to be 359º Northwest at approximately 127 miles per hour. Total calories burned: 167.”

With a beep, the glass silenced, and although the boy enjoyed the peace without his device, he longed for an organic voice to comfort him. 

“Psst,” someone conveniently urged the hero, “over here!” 

Beaming, the boy yanked around to find a sparkle greeting him. 

“Howdy, sport!” The sparkle seemed to pipe. “How’ve ya been?”

No matter how much as the hero wanted to greet the sparkle with glee, he couldn’t lie, and gave a thumbs down.

Dimming, the glitter moaned. “Aww, I’m so sorry about that. Here, wanna see something really special to cheer you up? Move in closer!”

Looking over his shoulder, the hero crouched to point his face near the sparkle. “Just a little closer,” it insisted, and the boy obeyed, wincing, stretching his—

“BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

In a nanosecond, the room erupted with hellfire, and the apparition of a boar’s skull rattled the boy’s body and consciousness. Chains of orange magma laced his torso to the earth, and quicksand poured from his mouth in gallons. 

Spitting out the muck in his mouth and rising up from his horror, the hero watched the glint cackle as if it would fall over itself. “Oh, good god, you should’ve seen the look on your stupid face!”

Dusting himself off, the hero crossed his arms, and the star now glowed a sinister red. “Anyway, morning princess. You’re probably feeling a little angsty, eh?”

The hero growled, and swiped at the sparkle. “Hey now, buddy, don’t get your panties in a wad. I bet they’re already soaked, though, after that hanky-panky you had back in that pig’s lair.”

The glimmer chuckled, then moved about the pseudo-wall in the apparent room the boy found himself in. "Nice to finally meet you again, kiddo. It sure has been a while. How's Martha treating you?" It wondered. "Oh, right, you left her behind just to get in my way." 

"You know," it ranted, "I don't think I have a short fuse; it's just pretty boring here in dreamland without anything to do. That, of course, is where your unending journeys through hell come in. You don't remember the last run, of course, but hey, that's half of the punishment."

"Oh," it remembered, "and be careful with that gizmo I lent you. You probably don't even know how to use it outside of crying like a baby, but it sure saved your ass back there anyway. Butch always had such sensitive ears."

The sparkle dashed a meter away. “Well, congrats, anyway,” it groaned. “I’ll have you know, I placed Mr. chowhound there just to break you in early, and you should thank me for that awfully convenient boulder. You oughtta see what I’ve got in store next! Then we'll hear how loud you can weep for your little piggy--or better yet, join him!”

A sinister cackle flooded the room before the hero's feet skid along the ground of a well-lit limestone cave. Cobwebs floundered about in the breeze, and bubbly pillars reeked of urine. Even after just a moment of standing there, the boy cringed as a spider pumped him chock full of venom, involuntarily shaking his leg. After flicking the crawler off himself, the boy consulted his device. “Caution: Destructive percentage of neurotoxic venom detected. Initiating sterilization protocol.”

With a quick zap, the hero’s blood streamed normally again, although the purple gushing from his ankle ached.

Despite the smell dazing the boy, he continued into the cavern, shuddering at the long hallways it housed. He couldn't always see them, but the boy swatted himself to the sound of myriad spiders dashing from the pillars. As a protrusion in the earth startled his foot away, the hero averted his attention to the noise of pests racing only inches underneath him, and deeper in the chamber, the odor from prior cowered under the kick of acid, bubbling through a drain near the ceiling and seeping into the spongey earth, sizzling the crust.

With no way to traverse further, the hero retraced his steps until the pillars about him quaked. His eyes flickered about the room as he spotted spiders, like sand on a beach, wedging themselves from the walls in swathes. As they clambered about, slobbering venom, the ceiling succumbed to the same fate as its foundation, ripping from its seams with newborn devils.

As the boy charged for the original room, a gate swooped down over his exit, clutching the pores of the earth despite the hero's efforts to lift it. No thanks to his size, the hero couldn't crawl through the gate, nor could he snap the bars, and soon enough, the spiders scurried over to the hero, grasping his flesh with their talons. Flicking off the early birds, the boy dug into his satchel for another convenient item, but received no help.

With the first bite, the hero's vision clogged. Pain stopped. Circulation stopped. Waiting stopped.

"Collect your debt in blood."

Yet again, the hero's entirety shifted to a singeing ache, eliciting another shriek. His eruption skinned the room of its surface, blowing off the spiders' eyes and legs into the wall while grinding their jaws into their abdomens.

Once the hero reclaimed his lungs, the violet bubbling earlier began frothing into a fuming cyan. "Dear me," a woman's voice echoed, "what was all that ruckus?"

Knocking over the drain and poking its horn-adorned head out, another monster, coated in makeup, stretched its arms and skidded its front legs like lances along the wall. As it inspected the room, it caught wind of the now piping fumes. "Holy horse--"

Ka-poom; the fumes shrouded the room in rust, syphoning the inhabitants' lungs of moisture. As they wheezed it out, the two found the chamber coated in the copper fog.

Coughing, the monster cooed, "You ought to be more careful, honey. It's not easy keeping this place marvelous as it is." 

Resting its head on its hand, the diva batted its lashes and curled its antlers, inquiring, "What say you? The smell is a drag, but I'm working on it."

Tilting his head and scrunching his mouth, the hero pointed to his most recent bites, wiping off the toxins that ailed his style. "What in the world?" the monster gasped, holding its hand to its mouth. "That little shake we just had...you took care of the yearlings?"

Darting his eyes to the left, the hero nodded, and with its cheeks flushing, the diva congratulated, "That's so sweet of you, kiddo! I wanted to clear up some space for the cattle myself, but I simply couldn't bring myself to pick off the runts nobody bought. Thank you so much, child, you did a fabulous job. Oh, right, call me Mackenzie, darling. You can count on me."

With a thumbs up, the hero turned as the gate behind him ascended, and began pacing out to his original room. "H-hey!" Mackenzie ordered. "Where are you headed, sweetie? Maybe I can scratch your back since you scratched mine."

Jerking around to face the monster, the hero directed his index finger upward, making the spider twist his head and scratch the orange streams on his head. Mackenzie's eyeliner thickened with the relent of his eyes, and he took a moment to adjust the crest were his humanoid figure ended and his thorax began. "Up?" He wondered. "What on earth can you find up there? More yearlings, perhaps, but the mothers have been awfully angsty lately. I'd calm them myself, but the passages have gotten awfully narrow, and I've broken too many crowns to count."

Trying to pry himself from the pipe, the creature scratched the drain with his thorny abdomen, unable to free himself. "See? Quite exasperating, then imagine a whole pile of dirt with each step. Ugh, I don't know why I went into this business."

A ladder fell from the drain into the river, similarly to the gates. "If you could follow me this way," the spider suggested, "that would be a dream." Resting his eyes, Mackenzie clambered back into the pipe, insisting, "Keep up, hun."

Up the ladder and through the duct, a trickle of acid sizzled past what once was a torrent. The bottlenecked chamber granted the hero a better view of Mackenzie, who looked down on him from four meters up. "Hey," the diva mused, "Fancy meeting you here."

As the two hiked through the pipe, the metal suddenly stopped and the cave began. Mackenzie wondered, "Maybe I ought to fix up this area...oh, here's our stop." 

On his back legs, the monster hauled down a ladder from an above drain, and, with a thrust, cleared the first few bars, grasping his way past the cylinder. The hero, impressed by the diva's strength, hoped to hop up similarly, but then decided it would be best if he stuck to standard climbing.

"Well, I never suspected a child would make it so far into this place. How in the world did you break the glass?" The spider wondered, not picking up on the boy's incapacity to respond. "Oh well, that's of no importance. You certainly appear familiar, though, I must admit."

While the smell of acid wavered and cologne firmed in its place, the pair arose from the pipe into a chamber glimmering with citrine. Velvet carpets lined the hallways, lacing fountains of varying toxins to each other. Chandeliers, fixed above each fountain, bounced light about the room, catching stardust as it plummeted to the marble. 

"So?" Mackenzie begged. "Glamorous, isn't it?"

Uncertain he had ever seen anything like the room before, the boy took to leaving no stone unturned; Mackenzie, on the other hand, preferred things kept straight. "Watch where you step, please," the diva decreed. "And don't touch anything, mmkay?"

Nodding, the hero long jumped onto the triple king-sized mattress, ricocheting face-first into Mackenzie the Black Widower, oil on canvas.

Although throbbing with rage--that painting was a pretty penny--Mackenzie exercised his mercy on the boy, perambulating into the room, prying him from the paint, and plopping him onto the cushions. "Poor thing," the giant whispered to himself. "He must be exhausted."

The moment Mackenzie rose to his eight spears, the boy let out a world-ending snore. Chuckling to himself, the monster crawled away, extinguishing the candles alighting the bedroom's exit, preparing his own rest. 

Flittering his eyes, the hero caught the smell of acid ringing his nose again. As the boy raised his head, he observed the throne room seeping the muck, although more of it spilled from his room. In a fever, the hero held tight to his satchel and leapt off the bed into the ankle-deep pool, scratching back up onto the bed as his skin singed off, and his escapes all bubbled and hissed as the acid ate the walls. 

Staking his pikes into the earth, Mackenzie dashed towards the master bedroom, wincing at the crumbling infrastructure. “Oh, honey,” he muttered, “this can’t be..!”

Once Mackenzie managed to haul the boy onto his shoulders, he hunted for the drain cap, prodding through several walls to do so. Alas, with each second he wasted, Mackenzie only grew more tired, and never happened upon his medium despite his search. Within minutes, the corrosion reached the monster’s knees.

Standing higher than usual, Mackenzie dashed up the wall over his throne and yanked at the valve atop the chamber. Despite his efforts, the valve only screeched a bit, and fastened to the escape route. Sweat splattering the filth against the walls, the spider jimmied the lid off of the pipe, just barely dodging the mass of grime and flicking any splatters off of his fingers.

Rubbing his eyes, the hero finally fully awakened, hoping his satchel would bail him and Mackenzie out; however, he found only an empty bag. Although he wanted to consult his Collideoscope, he didn’t want to hurt Mackenzie, or himself for that matter.

The grime soon bubbled in Mackenzie’s face, skyrocketing his temper. With a hiss, he scrunched around to face the ceiling and bore his talons into it, thrusting himself headfirst without paying heed to the muck seeping through the cracks. Skidding his antlers along the dirt, the duo finally broke free from the flood, rising into a cavern stuffed with amethyst cutting into the wavy cave walls. Frills on the walls gave the impression that the acid flowed even here, although perhaps to a less intensive point.

"Ew, ew, ew," Mackenzie muttered, brushing muck off of his face. "Huh? Oh, we're here."

Further into the cavern, columns of spiders toiled away atop their own crystals, wrapping them and gyrating, coating them in webbing. Others yet poured the muck into holes in the rock, or pried their thousands of newborns from the coating.

Tilting his head, the diva crouched down on his eight legs, setting his head in his hands and wondering aloud, "Why, isn't that awful strange? Just a moment ago, they went bonkers." Mackenzie rubbed his eyes. "Oh, my queen, you'd know what to do, wouldn't you?"

Just as the two looked up, one spider stopped. Then, four more. Thirty-two. Eight hundred. As easily as they stopped, a single worker urged the rest to unite in song with its shriek, and like nails on a chalkboard, the sound snapped the crystals adorning the ground, forcing the hero to wrap his hands around his ears.

Expectedly, the lens obscured the boy's vision. As the red pierced his eyes yet again, the sting dissipated across the boy's whole body rather than damaging his will. Mustering all his might, the boy flung his arms to his sides as he poured his thorny voice across the the cave, shredding the sound about it. Several arachnids, holding fast to their crystals, burst from their thorax due to the sound, and the rest scurried off to hide.

Uncovering his ears, Mackenzie crouched down to hold the hero's shoulder. "Holy cow, honey," he peeped, "that sure hit the spot! I couldn't have done it better myself."

Rising back to his proud stance, Mackenzie surveyed the ruins of his farm, sighing heavily. "You sure did a number on the mothers, though. Not to be a drag, but they're super important to me. In fact, would you mind helping me herd those misses back on over? They're used to me, and hardly listen, so a new face would be super appreciated."

Holding his hips with his hands, the hero fired his best skeptical look at the diva, nailing Mackenzie in the sides. "Come on," the monster chuckled, "you'll have it easier getting out, I promise!"

Nodding, the hero leapt off, hoping for the best. With a sigh, Mackenzie wondered where the boy got all of his energy from, following closely behind, although taking a route someone of the monster's size could fit through.

As the hero squeezed his way into a nearby tunnel, he kicked the crystal shards back from him, sinking whatever talons he could muster into the dirt. After some quick thinking, he began excavating with a shard instead of his fingernails. 

Once his arms and legs burned out, the hero suddenly found it hard to breathe. The path ahead swelled with shadow, while the path behind shuddered with light. 

Instantly, the light tumbled under the weight of the dirt, and the shadow swelled against the hero. Hyperventilating, the hero began shimmying his way through the tunnel, sliding his shard through the dirt like a madman in hopes to escape. As his breathing grew fickle, the boy's sweat glued him to the tunnel's bottom. Each second that passed whittled at the hero's faith, until he finally broke through to the other side, gasping loud enough to form an echo.

The hero's current cavern housed only crystals, slicing through the cave rock like an ice pick through an avalanche in the middle of summer.

Despite his urge to explore, the hero forced himself to spare his bare feet the agony of walking in the cavern. Rather, he clung to the crystals sprouting near his exit, springing to and from each extension to the next. Mistakenly, though, the hero grabbed at a flimsy crystal, tumbling from his original posture until he managed to reach for another shard across the wall, sparing his vitals the edge of the gemstones. Flinging himself far to his right, the hero landed on the other side of the crystal mass, huffing with his hands on his hips. 

In the farthest depths of the tunnel, the mothers quaked at the sight of the hero. Several reared their front legs in the air and sprayed venom into the air, while others yet scurried across the ceiling and burrowed their way out. The spiders' eyes, sucking the glitter from the gems, were plastered to their heads, coated in pores that housed seed-like needles.

Forgetting how many mothers he needed to herd, the boy grimaced under the pressure of keeping them unharmed and the uncertainty of how to do so. Taking a gust into his lungs, the hero tiptoed over to the more pugnacious spiders, who soon extended their needles. Although not threatened, the hero stuck out his tongue at the sight of the pores throbbing, seeping fizzy blood. Crystal still in hand, the boy sweat profusely as he neared the mother, holding out his open hand in peace. For a moment, the spider quieted, and each living creature in the cave could hear each other's heart beating, until it snapped at the hero, soaking his garb with venom. In a screaming fit, the boy wiped as much acid as possible off of him, whining as his sweat lit his chest on fire. With a snarl, the hero leapt onto the spider, slicing off its spines in vengeance and lodging his crystal into its seventh eye. With a final hiss, the mother surrendered, kneeling on the dirt and mourning its oculus.

Out of awe, the remaining mothers scuttled to the wounded worker's sides, staring about her wounds and praying the same doesn't happen to them.

In spite of his endeavors, the boy still thought of no ways he could manage to herd the spiders his way. Trudging back the way he came, the spiders soon followed, miraculously. Sprouting his best smile, the hero pranced past the tunnel, sending forth a worker to plow the way for him, riding back to the incubation chamber. A quick glance, however, revealed no Mackenzie. Contorting his face and rubbing his temples, the hero left the spiders to their business and walked over to the escape route, observing the lack of acid and retracing back to the throne room.

Skidding down the tunnel, the hero nearly fell flat on his face before he split his legs, hanging upside-down over the throne; Rising to meet him, Mackenzie smirked and ran his fingers along the boy's face.

"Thank you kindly, sweetie," the monster cooed, "but I'll be needing just one more thing from you."

In just the nick of time, the hero clenched Mackenzie's talon right before it severed his neck. "Critical stress detected," the Collideoscope droned. "Initiating adrenaline influence protocol."

With that, the hero felt his body begin to shudder uncontrollably, plummeting to the earth only to land on his feet. Pushing back his sleeves, the hero's fist throbbed with blood, and his eyes jittered, flickering tears about his stained jeans.

Crouching down into his fetal position, the diva blew his hair out of his face, humming, "Aren't you a feisty boy. I didn't expect you to manage all that." He licked his lips. "You certainly did a fabulous job with the spiders. But that won't stop me from eating you like a gnat!"

Lunging forward, the monster dug his javelins into the porcelain, straight under the hero as he leapt onto the curtain above him. "You little pest!" Mackenzie cried, scurrying up the wall to meet him. "You think you can just break my painting and sleep in my bed without a debt?"

"Silly child, falling even for the simplest of facades. With your help, I needn't even bother with the mothers anymore, nor do I need to offer myself up to you on a silver platter."

Sinking his fangs into the tapestry, Mackenzie sent the hero careening to the floor, only for him to skid across and leap back into the monster's thorax. Baring his teeth, the monster clutched his stomach, lurching onto the ground from the hit; even so, the hero continued his assault, digging his shard deep into Mackenzie's antlers. With a sneer pulling back his face, the monster thrashed his horns as it stumbled back to its feet, tossing the hero into a wall without his weapon.

"Aw, this poor thing," the king snickered. "You sure can nail me in the gut, but the crown is off limits."

With a flick of his wrists, Mackenzie sprouted a series of webs, scattering his maze about the throne room and narrowing the hero's tactics. With his nemesis under management, the king strolled off to his throne. "I remembered something, you know. I saw myself dying over and over again, and the malice in your eyes each time it happened. I remembered my mistakes, and your endeavors, and I nearly hurled."

Propping himself up on his throne, Mackenzie sighed, slouched, and relished the hero's struggling. "Do you know how I survive down here?" The King inquired. "Not only do I harvest amethyst, but I farm Cavern Recluse for export." Propping his head up on his hand and inspecting a crystal, Mackenzie rolled his eyes. "Those mothers print gold more than they ovulate. It's a blissful endeavor, but an awful hassle sometimes, and for what? To get my quarters all spiffy just to die at your hands?"

Picking himself back up and trotting over to the child, the monster pasted his antlers back with webbing, appearing as though no damage even occurred. "Despite how conniving you got with her, you sure fell right into my hands. To reward your betrayal, I think I'll make more use of you than just drinking you like a smoothie," he whispered, snickering in between breaths. "You're going to look fabulous when Shrapnel arranges your limbs in alphabetical order."

Grasping his bag by the strap, the hero pumped another load of adrenaline into his system, flinging the satchel with enough force to knock the king's right antler down and clean through his center, spewing the creature's bile about his own face.

Without words, the spider king pulled his crown from his thorax, splattering stomach acid across the boy's face, and thrusted his prod into the earth, spouting the original purple acid up to the ceiling. "But of course, you won't let me off easy," Mackenzie snarled, climbing up the walls of the chamber through the original escape route. "Enjoy your time alone, honey-bunches. Your skull will make a great early birthday present."

Without the aid of Mackenzie, the webs of the floor and height of the ceiling double teamed the hero, and with the filth frothing at his feet, he couldn't bear to go down without a fight. Clawing his way into the webbing, the hero found himself stuck before long, and as the muck sizzled along his bare feet, the boy's wince grew across his cheeks. No escape route granted him access, until the hero recalled his shard, which lay just outside of his snares.

With his best foot forward, the hero flung himself toward his dagger, tripping on the webbing and barely catching himself. The acid soon clung to the hero's hands as he grimaced, tearing off his skin in nibbles. Falling onto the ground, the boy reached out his arm with all he had left, finally touching, flicking, and grasping the prod, lacing the white surrounding him.

Although his sides fumed from the acid feast, the pool only grew, forcing the hero out of his daze and on top of the throne. Upon the boy seeing the preliminary pipe wheeze the god forsaken muck, he squinted, supposing the only way out could be from the master bedroom--the only other room with an acid duct. The child dodged as much filth as he could, although the vent also flooded his nemesis into the chamber, eroding his future. With all of his three exits exhausted and his hourglass's bottom filling rapidly, the hero leapt onto the bed, conceding defeat with his back against the chilly sheets.

The bed, you dingus. 

Using a lamp as his paddle, the hero steered his way past the sconce, ducking his head into the now half-full throne room. The acid, swirling with persistent mud, slobbered at the bedsheets, bringing down the hero's grasp, although he managed to find his way onto the tapestry in time to reach the dug-out escape.

Stretching his arms and legs to grasp the tunnel, the hero began scrunching past the dirt, but as the chemicals began to charge at him, he clenched his teeth and sped over the exit, guarding his face with his bag from the prompt fountain spritzing the area with toxins.

Greeting him with a slow clap, Mackenzie stepped around his webbing maze to congratulate the hero. "My my," he mused, "I didn't think you had it in you." Stretching, the diva protruded his lance towards the boy's face. "Anyway, my belly is feeling marvelous right about now, but it's in need of...dessert."

With the Collideoscope's adrenaline, the hero dove for a crystal nearby, slicing off part of Mackenzie's claw before it could impale him again. Baring his teeth, the king leapt onto the hero, each of his stabs blocked by the boy's dagger until he regained his footing.

"You know what?" The monster growled. "You're not even worth the trouble to eat. I'll blow you off the face of the earth! Then we’ll see if you come back!”

On Mackenzie's chest, an emerald began to glow, and green sludge poured from the shoulder crest about the king's humanoid half, soon reaching his thorax and seeping the holes coating it. With each pore filled, a prod sprouted, coating itself with holes for other thorns to grow. Mackenzie even lowered a helmet over his face, which glimmered sable against the cave's sudden evergreen--not even the crystals resisted the force of the emerald.

Cackling, Mackenzie's tenth legs, double the size of his first eight, prepared to spring him up. "Dance with me," the demon ordered. "Waltz with your fate; quickstep into hell!"

With a ding, the lens's pike vibrated in the boy's brain, steadying his throbbing arms and pumping gallons of blood to his oculi. The previous volcanic eruption turned to a satin blanket over the hero's mind, preparing him to give his best yell, and as Mackenzie tossed his first leg towards the child, he retaliated with the signature shockwave, his eyes rolling back in his head and knees grinding against the dirt, turning the king's second claw to dust, but leaving the rest of him unphased. 

Tossing off the helmet to reveal a visage contorted with avarice, Mackenzie widened his ten eyes to dinner plates, with each mouth laughing heartily. "Oh, isn't that just adorable," the king's new snarl mocked. "You ought to know those are awfully expensive. I thought you knew something about working for what you want.”

Unimpressed, the hero leapt forward to lay his shard into the monster's neck, but only ricocheted off of the sudden thorn shield Mackenzie conjured. Chuckling heartily, Mackenzie taunted, “Perhaps you only happened upon me out of that spite you associate yourself with.” 

The hero, backed against a wall, gripped his shoulder and rose to run at the monster again, bouncing up and over the shield as it prepared to block him. Readying his strike, the boy fell to the spider's back, until the blockade shifted around his dagger. 

As the hero skidded along the dome, his bare feet shredded against the pores aligning it, and his shoulder started to crack under the force of pulling for his crystal. Amidst pulling, the hero's feet progressively worsened in grinding, to the point that his skin began to peel off and a puddle of vitals spread from underneath him. Through the ache, the crystal wobbled, but the hero only managed to slip off, covering himself in his blood as the spider king towered over him. 

Each stab at the hero Mackenzie took, the boy only rolled away until he regained his footing. With a growl, the monster coated the hero with webs, sewing his writhing body to the earth. "No more games," Mackenzie bellowed, shoving his unsharpened front legs into the hero's torso, dealing no obvious damage.

"...You fiend!" Mackenzie uttered, and as he reared his next set of legs, the hero screeched at the top of his lungs, urging the king to don his mask and prod shield until the dust cleared. With a chuckle, Mackenzie prepared himself again, chiding, "Are you stupid? You know that doesn't even phase me."

Suddenly, the cave's ceiling began to crumble, and the diva spit the dust that fell from above, losing his footing without his front claws. Before either fighter could mention their shock, a geyser leapt from the throne room, pummeling the king with burning cocktail and searing the webbing from the hero's shoulders. 

Rising from the shock and awe, the hero gazed upon the king's steaming body, shuddering against the melted joints and gossamer that seeped whatever remained of the monster. It was over.

Barely able to look up at the boy, Mackenzie winced through his ache, running his fingers through his melted antlers. “I…I couldn’t do it,” the king barely managed. “I knew what you wanted from me, and that I couldn’t give it to you, but the situation never changed.” 

Clenching his teeth, the diva sighed. “Perhaps…this is a nice change. Perhaps you deserved to survive here, and perhaps…I can finally see Martha again, if she’ll forgive me.”

Just as Mackenzie clenched his eyes, the mother horde came to greet the hero, their alpha smelling him up. Shrugging--only to realize how awful his shoulder ached--the hero stepped up onto the alpha's back, and the pack set out through at boy's tunnel, pausing to grant him one last glance at Mackenzie.

Just before the alpha could proceed, the hero's lens tugged him back. "You're forgetting something," it reminded, and the hero leapt off of the mother to retrieve his satchel, strewn about in front of the monster. Before he could set out, though, Mackenzie's emerald caught the boy's interest, now depraved of previous breath.

No matter how immoral the hero found it, he theorized he would need the emerald for later, and snatched it up with him for his ride with the mothers. Atop of the alpha, the boy strolled down into the crystal trap and aided in the burrowing of a new tunnel past the horde's hiding place, which sprouted to the glass wall from the prairie.

Clearing his throat, the hero shocked the wall with a shrill, paving the way for his guide to traverse, and on their way out, the horde felt the rising sun grace their eyes. As the mothers set down the hero and peered about the plains, the alpha led them into the wilderness, dipping out of the sunbeams off to the cell tower crumbled in the distance.

Turning to his original awakening point, the boy noticed the sun's other half peaking above the street, and the light posts bent apart. Gazing further up revealed a stone clock tower, piercing the clouds, adorned in scars that exposed its insides. Held up on arches that dove into the void below, the street led the way to the tower's gate, lit by fire like curtains.

The sign just before the cave lay dismantled on the earth, with a new message:

 

"Clean up after yourself."

 

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

[spoiler=IV: Chesed]

Just before the barrier, the hero contemplated his next step, surmising he could not go past Mackenzie's domain and not wanting a reminder of Butch's oven. In an attempt to poke the electricity, though, the hero's hand pierced straight through his obstacle, an obelisk against the winds that curled about him, and, with a step forward, he discovered his body in an entirely new biome, particularly without an apparent ground. As the boy paced the walkway, he noticed the sunrise mirrored the sunset, and gulped at the tower that loomed over him. The wind pressed against his strides, urging him not to go on despite the hero's need. Empty balconies, creaking against the tower, sent rubble to the gate below, which gurgled as if it were light headed.

"Welcome back, Noir," the Collideoscope spoke up, nearly shocking the boy over the walkway. "You earned 13,497 Experience Points. You have reached Level 16 and have acquired 122,018 Experience Points. Your most recent Experience Point increase was at 5:20 this evening, upon the defeat of Mackenzie the Black Widower. Current Temperature: 54 degrees. Your vector appears to be 90º Northeast at approximately 1 mile per hour. Total calories burned: 512.”

Grasping his shoulder with one hand, the hero knocked on the gate with the other, widening his eyes to take it all in. Despite his usual ingenuity, the hero saw no way to possibly pass the gate, and his throat scratched too much from his screams to manage more than a wheeze.

Pivoting around a flagpole, the hero spotted a split in the walkway that surrounded the tower on a square platform, and began to pace past the side, only to find his feet stinging. Picking one up, the scab adorning the hero's foot seeped with beady blood, although the boy wondered how his wounds scabbed so quickly. Digging into his satchel, the hero pulled up Mackenzie's crown jewel, grimacing as his skin sponged around the scar, tying itself up like an envelope. Only a fool wouldn't do the same with the other foot, and of course, the hero's astonishment brought him to hobble over to the wall as he nailed his foot with the emerald.

Back on his feet--literally--the hero flew to the tower's rear, finding a gash that granted him easy access to the way forward, although mysteriously not compromising the integrity of the tower. Crawling through the crumbling bricks, a wind squeezed the hero past the scar, moaning as it blew about the skyscraper's innards.

Buzzing, the lack of light soon split around the hero's blinking eyes, unveiling ripped furniture and a shattered wall mirror sunken on the floor. Pastel canvases faded under the false gravity, spilling onto the creaking wooden floor and being dampened by the shadows dripping from the ceiling. Despite the sunset, no natural light intruded the gash, or perhaps the shadow sealed the gash of any light that could reach it.

After nearly tripping over a downed candleholder, the boy picked up a photograph, blotched with monochrome drops, featuring a man, squinting his eyes in a suit, and a woman, propped up on a stump and staring sternly into the camera. Setting the enigma back in its place, the hero clambered up the stairs to the second floor, kicking the shadows from under his feet and grasping the hand rail for dear life. 

The second floor, although dustier, retained much more of its former self, it seemed. Rows of bunk-beds, squeaking in the wind, absorbed swathes of aquamarine dust that urged the hero to sneeze and rub his eyes. From the unmoving, a gust flung the stardust to the right, and a shadowy probe faded into and out of sight, sending the hero's heartbeat into a steady drum.

"How was your time with the king of fools?" A familiar voice taunted from behind the hero, although when he turned around, the dust cackled at him. "I really hoped you hadn't gained so much experience from Butch that the itsy-bitsy fairy boy was a pushover, but I guess devouring your own queen has its repercussions, eh?"

Each time the hero's eyes jumped to the room's corners, a growl bounced from them into his nightmares, costing him in cold sweat. "Oh, right, I ought to let you know; don't listen to any of the elders, please. At least half of everything they say is bullshit. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed them at first, but they just gave up their souls so easily. Butch was starving, Mackenzie was broke, and neither of them wanted anything more than to hurt you."

The floorboards creaked, and two glowing dots pierced the fog. "But hey, they were having plenty of fun on their own, until you came along and slaughtered them. Anyway, you two play nice!"

Grasping his chest, the boy shook from the chills in the room, then fanned himself amidst his adrenaline, recovering only once his knees stopped shaking. The dust fell upon the beds, and the sound hid underneath them.

Snarling, the globes' owner pounced from under a bed, knocking the others over like dominoes and nearly snapping the floorboards. Coating the floor with slobber, the vulpine's front legs featured colossal clubs on their ends, while its snout dipped to the earth, and its rear legs hit the floor like lightning bolts. Within two steps, the behemoth was upon the hero, who whacked the antenna bobbing in front of his face while evading the creature's lunges. With a grunt, the hero plunged his feet into the monster's face, slipping on the bloody slobber that unfurled as the monster reared itself, only to knock the boy into a wall with a fling of its hoof. Although his legs worked like new, the hero's shoulder still ached from his bout with Mackenzie, and now intensified to a mind-numbing yank. 

As the hero writhed against the wall, the devil's antenna scouted the air for traps, tiptoeing to its victim. Each step of its clubs undid a nail or two from the floor, and the hero picked up on a plan quickly, barely managing to sneak under the bed next to him. Baring its teeth, the monster kicked off of the wall and bore its teeth into the bar keeping up the top bunk, sending the dominoes in the exact opposite direction. Meanwhile,the child leapt from underneath his hiding spot and leapt onto the fiend's leg, pulling with all of his might but getting nowhere.  "Initiating automated adrenaline influence protocol," the collideoscope droned, and the hero's quakes returned, giving his pull enough force to send the creature through the floor and onto the downstairs sofa, knocking it out.

Amidst the monster's dormancy, the hero scuttled up several flights of steps, glancing at the many beds housed in the facility. The 5th floor, however, outdid the rest; no cot had a bunk, but each carried an end table, with a lamp and a particular item on it. Closest to the hero, the bent cot had a chocolate bar wrapper perched under the lamp, fluttering in the outside breeze. One across from it, a terrarium, full of dirt and sticks, sat perfectly still stop the shadow, and on the next, a doll of fine china awaited someone to play with it. Turning around, the hero found several other items of interest, including a dog collar, a top, a pocket watch, and a record player. 

With the hero setting down the needle on the vinyl, the disc began to--

"Hiya, stranger!"

At the top of his lungs, the hero screamed in horror, crossing his arms and falling on the floor in a cold sweat. Peering down over him, a girl a little older than him set her swords at her hips with her first set of slender arms, the other two scratching her head and holding her chin. "You okay there, little guy?" She wondered, her skirt floating in the breeze and black braids hanging past her shoulders. “You’d better not break something. On yourself, that is, given this darn old infrastructure."

Rising back to his feet, the hero tilted his head to officially greet the girl, wondering how everyone got to be so tall in this world. "Got a name, little guy?" The girl wondered, still bent over to face the hero. Although he tried his best, the boy's voice still evaded him, and he thus shrugged, hoping the monster hadn't woken up yet.

"Oh, alrighty," the stranger piped, "I guess I'll call you..." Holding her chin, she looked about the ceiling, tapping her foot. "Ooh! I'll call you--"

Like lightning, the beast from earlier darted through the floor, splintering the planks before unleashing a roar that blew the sweat off of the duo. Drawing a sword for each of her four hands, the girl began spinning from her waist, pacing towards the beast and deflecting its stabs at her with slashes that poured down one after the other in sequence, then as the creature reared into a corner, it pounced onto the lady with its hooves first, only to have them entwined in blood that split its nails off.

The stranger stammered, steadying herself after the spinning fit and turning to the hero. "N-now what?" She panted, her sweat glittering against her blades. Sprouting wide eyes, the hero couldn't actually size up the situation, and brought his finger across his neck, clutching the bedside to keep his balance.

The girl nodded, crouched, and leapt forward, gyrating like a helicopter on heroin, blending the incubus to a fine purée, rendering its remains to blood, nails, and soot.

"...Shorty," she finally finished, slipping to sheath her blades and sticking out a quivering hand to greet the hero. "That's what I came up with. Nice to, uh, meet you!"

Tweaking his Collideoscope, the hero thrust his hand into the girl's wiggled his arm, earning her giggle. "You sure are limber," she quipped, ruffling the boy's hair with her other hand. "That sure was scary, considering I've never seen one of those things around these parts before. Did he belong to you?"

Frowning across his face, the hero thrashed his head to the sides, although he only thought it did not belong to him. The stranger smirked, bubbling, "I sure hoped not. My name's Melanie, by the way. Great to meet you!"

By the tenth floor, the hero already felt his legs sink to the earth, wondering why he hadn’t taken a break. Noticing how his arms dripped from their sockets, Melanie set her hand upon the boy’s shoulder, pinning the appendage back into place, sympathizing, “Hey now, there’s just a little ways to go. I’m sure you’ll love Bertha.”

The hero lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, right,” the lady apologized. “She’s one of my friends. A pain every once in a while, but she does her best”

Once the duo found their way to the top of the steps, the 11th floor presented a projector propped up on a tripod. "That's weird, Melanie remarked, blowing the dust from it, "This definitely wasn't here earlier." Running her fingers across the buttons aligning the device before finally settling to a single one near the top, the mechanism spat its light across the room, blanketing the undone nails and plaster.

At first, the images barely even formed, but the moment they sizzled into place, a child's silhouette quivered against the straps restraining him. "Now, hold still, Leon," the voice of a man far taller and older than the hero commanded, wiping a prong with his handkerchief. "It's very important that you don't struggle."

He kneeled down against the chair, flicking away his lab coat. "You're going to feel a teeny sting."

Pick loose in hand, the elder neared Leon's--the child's--eye, and as Leon squirmed, clenched the boy's throat hard enough to hear a squirt over the recording. "Are you DEAF?" The instigator accused, sending his iron clean through the subject's upper eye, far past the back of his head, and with a mallet, smashed his medium deep into Leon's skull.

Brushing off the optic fluid and blood on his coat, the man dashed offscreen and muttered, "There, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

It finally stopped.

Grasping her sides, Melanie swallowed audibly. "Gee," she winced, "way to keep me awake at night."

Ceasing its whirring, a video cassette popped up from the projector, sending stardust floating back to the device. "Who covered this in dust before they put it here, anyway? Seems like a waste of time to just have it played again."

With a shrug from each member, the pair clambered up the stairs, while Melanie eased the ache behind her eyes by rubbing her temples. Atop the 11th floor, only more beds wore down upon the planks, although unlike their cousins downstairs, triplet bunks nearly touched the roof. "I never understood how the Hollands built this place," Melanie mentioned. "Oh, I doubt you know them." 

Digging around in her skirt pocket, the top presented a golden pocket watch to the hero, popping the case to reveal what seemed to be the man from the downstairs picture frame, but many years ago, as if he just turned twenty. The color broke the photo's back, caving to the hours ticked away from waiting. 

Pocketing the antique, Melanie blew her hair out of her face, darting her eyes back to the top bunk and nearly hitting her head upon leaping up. “There’s nothing up here,” the girl concluded, bobbing her head left and right. “We may as well move on.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the hero glanced at a mouse hole in the wall, although he doubted any mice came out of it.

 

 

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[spoiler=XII: Malfunction]

 

By noon, time seemed to clunk about in the tower, bumping the big hands and little hands into each other while the second hands hurdled over some ticks but crashed into others. "Looks like the 14th floor," Melanie hollered down from cloud nine, admiring the warm candle that waxed the room. Although layered in fuzz, the carpet cushioned the feet of bookshelves standing proud with their hardcover emblazons. “Oh, wow,” the girl gasped, jogging over to dig into one of the scriptures, “I totally skipped over this one.”

Glazed into the book’s front cover, Watch Maintenance & Repair told most of the story before any pages were flipped. The table of contents, typewritten in Courier New, guided the readers through the cogs and wheels into the intricacies sewing the classic timepiece together. Despite the petiteness of the device in question, Melanie’s tome brought the hero to his knees when she dropped it into his hands, and as the boy sneezed, it crushed his toes. “Yikes!” The lady squealed. “Sorry, I forgot you’re not that strong.”

A sigh blew away the warmth holding the shelves in place. "Would you mind not being strong somewhere else?" Someone complained. "I'm trying to read."

Creaking around in his office chair and propping his legs up on the desk, another young boy, cloaked in a grey hoodie that wrinkled against the floor from his seat, swooped his gray hair over his right eye. His literary choice, Longcase Clocks and You, fit easily into his pocket. “Well? It was quiet before you got here. I almost found myself having fun.”

Fumbling to return her book to its original place, Melanie brushed the dust off of her skirt, pointing out, “Right, sorry to disturb you. Um, wait, who are you again?”

The fellow turned, sprung, and clunked over to the hero’s companion with his arms behind his back. Rolling his eyes, he mumbled, “Well, I’m not the floor boss, for one. Can’t say the same about you, though. Perhaps you’ll have your time.”

He ignored the bemused wince on the girl’s face, and leered at the hero. “As for you,” the bookworm began, “I think a little reading wouldn’t hurt. Here, how about Remedying Psychological Ailments through Leucotomic Enhancement of the Amygdala?”

Tossing his files into the air, the fellow continued to quiz, “Not your cup of tea? Why not Genetic Tracing by Reassignment of Patient Alleles for Cloning?”

With a snarl, the hero snatched Melanie’s closest sword and sliced the document clean in half before it hit the ground, fluttering down like a pheasant shot in the wing. Any wit evaded the child as he propped his new power against the instigator’s neck, but faced even with treachery, the stranger only guffawed, “You wouldn’t.”

Squinting through his bloodlust, the hero did, hoping to carve his target’s jaw in half, but the fellow simply clenched his teeth over the blade before the cut went through, permanently denting the sword. Spitting out the cutlass and lodging it into the wall, the bookworm wiped the blood from the sides of his mouth, licked his finger, and sent it through the hero's eye with a stomp forward.

"Shorty, no!" Melanie shouted, holding the boy up by his shoulders as his knees sunk. The lens carved the hero’s eye, and shards pierced his eyelid as he spewed crimson tears. Strolling back over to his seat, the stranger buzzed, "That's all it takes? Your other one is next, if you threaten me like that.”

With a sigh, the bookworm spun a pen around in his fingers, tossing it into Melanie's windpipe as she leapt at him. The girl, tearing the utensil out and quickly regenerating her lost skin, anchored herself on two swords. "Don't try me," the attacker groaned, spinning back in his armchair, "or my next shot will be lower."

The duelist wheezed, squeezing out, "Explain yourself, you brat! What's your problem?"

“Oh, I dunno where to start,” the stranger lectured, rolling his eyes. "I've got a vendetta, a death wish, and a million mistakes to atone. Make that a million and two, given this mess.”

He unzipped his hoodie, unbuttoned his turquoise golf shirt, and played with the medicine balls from his pocket. “Not to mention I’m really enjoying all this entropy.”

”So, kid," the fellow clanked at the hero, "don't you remember me, or him, or her? Don't you remember what that sick bastard Gnoll did to us?"

Despite his pain, the hero couldn't manage his scream, and sobbed as he tore the shards from his eyes, hoping to put his mind at ease. No answer left his lips, and no grace did the tinkerer give him.

"Thought so. You've been running this same road for so long, you don't even remember your buddy-old pal, Rion. Well, you can call me Chronicle now. Almost forgot that you wouldn’t be guaranteed to see me again, even with such stunning mechanics.”

In a fever, Melanie yanked her swords out of the ground, swinging out the other one latched to her side with her other hand and leaping towards the bookworm. Although the stranger tossed the metal globes at Melanie, she cut straight through them, touching down on Chronicle’s feet and sending her slicers to his sides, only for him to hold the steel back with his bare forearms. It soon occurred to the duelist that her adversary’s arms weren’t so bare after all, sending several sparks into the air, but remaining intact. “Like ‘em?” The tinkerer chuckled. “I made ‘em myself. They’re a blessing and a curse, really.”

Bending the swords away, the stranger dove down to sweep Melanie’s legs, grasping her skull and charging his knee into it. He didn’t hold onto her for long, finding more fun in kicking her gash and painting the carpet with malice. “What did you expect?” He chided, standing atop her front swords while twirling the other. “You didn’t think I was gonna go down that easy, now, did you? And to think you’re a floor boss.”

Bending over to retrieve his pen, the fellow glanced at the hero, reminding, “You’ve got a long road to take. It would behoove you to get out of my lane.” With a snap, he turned to light and vanished.

The hero laid against the bookshelf through sunset, nearly forgetting all about being there. Twitching his ears, the boy turned and found Melanie pacing down the stairs with bandages in her arms, glancing at him and piping, "Evening, shorty. I patched you up as best I could."

Setting his hand on his right eye, the hero felt a bandage in place of his usual window to the world. It felt like he was finally mopping up the hurricane.

“Yeah,” the duelist cringed, “It’s pretty gnarly. Sorry about not being much help.”

Deflating her chest, Melanie plopped down beside the hero, moping, "I don't know where that kid came from, or how he managed to put us both in our place."

"Isn't that funny?" She slouched. "I thought I saw all there was to see up here, yet you're showing me things I never really wanted to see. You're like...some kind of herald."

The hero couldn't deny that; he had a hunch that something was burning a hole in the back of his neck.

Stretching her arms out, the girl gathered her swords and helped the hero off of his feet. "We'd better hit the hay. I could walk to the top, but you need your rest, shorty. You can have whatever bunk you want."

By the time the stars flipped over their sheets, the hero crawled into hiding, unfamiliar with the cooling of the sheets against the warmth of the covers. Twitching his eye beneath his bandage, the boy pondered his time spent looking for a way out, wondering why he looked, or who looked at him. His shattered shades shook him to the core.

This was only day one.

 

 

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[spoiler=Chesed (Revisited)]

 

A gust along the hero's feet woke him on that fated morning, and when it found him awake, it scurried off to hide. Amid his head rush, each step the boy took, be it just clambering from his covers or looking up and around for Melanie, tugged the nerves behind his eye. Speaking of Melanie, it occurred to the hero that she seemed to require no sleep, while he needed more.

Before his eyes, the boy broke into a cold sweat, yanking the covers over him but nailing his head on the middle bunk in the process. Dust blanketed the wood below him, giving it more unnecessary weight, and the hero already felt a bump forming against his bandages. Reaching down to inspect the clods of antiquity, the boy spotted his bag set against his bed, and found his jewel from the spider king, and with a grin, he glued the shard to his injury, planting himself to the ground as he waited for results. Little came to his aid, though, so stuffed the tool into his pocket, surmising he could continue a steady recuperation.

Up the stairs, the beloved duelist crossed her legs and sipped from a teacup of what seemed to be tea made from grass, given the faint smell of a forest lingering in the steam. Melanie’s third hand held up the latest issue of Spiders Weekly, while her fourth hand turned the pages. It took her about two minutes to even notice the hero’s presence, when she piped, “Ah, you’re up.”

Fluttering about in a vivid rumba, the fireplace twirled the hero’s eyes into its groove. A pixie of coal nearly fluttered onto the boy's nose, but he squashed the life out of the spark before it could singe his smooth face. As if the first one weren't enough, nine other sparks soon fell to dust--the tenth one required many consecutive hits to put out.

"Careful now," Melanie chided. "Burning yourself in this state could spell doom for you."

Nodding, the child stuck his hand into the flames, finally learning the burden of curiosity.

By midday, the hero finally noticed how Melanie hadn't even looked up from her book enough to drink the entirety of her tea, which he may as well use to replace the bucket of lukewarm duckweed that he couldn't take his hand out of without another finger wag from his duelist guardian. "It's strange, really," she mentioned, resting her chin upon her hand. "I remember yesterday, and the day before that, and probably a week or two ago, but beyond that, all I can remember is same-old same-old."

Melanie brushed her hair out of her face. "I don't even know exactly why I'm here today, or why I look like this, and you...don't. I guess I just shouldn't question it, right?" With a frown, she sipped her chilly concoction. "Maybe I forgot for a reason."

"It's weird, though," she noted, "how I just so happened to be exploring the lower areas of the tower when you popped up and flung me into more of an excursion than I've gotten into since...well, forever, actually. Are you special or something?"

Seated like a frog, and with a similarly-eyed face, the boy shook his head, assuring his navigator that the two of them were just as clueless as the other.

"Well, alright," the giantess decided. "I guess if the answers have come to us for this long, they'll come to us the higher we get."

With a nod, the hero decided he had enough of the wretched coolant that just weighed him down. After all, his burn couldn't possibly take that long to heal.

The 26th, 27th, and 28th floors never presented anything particularly fascinating. On the 29th floor, a trapdoor sealed the climbers from their next destination, and the two nearly skipped over a wooden chess board, propped up on a black porcelain pedestal. Melanie caressed the edge of the field, then began randomly rearranging the pieces, leaving the pawns in the bishops’ spots and knocking over the black queen. Unable to bear the disorder, the hero did his best to set the board back the way it was, struggling to remember where the rooks and knights stood before they were tampered with. Despite the boy's struggle, he at least admired the foreign antique, rolling his finger over the pawns' heads and, when he reached the end of their lineup, blankly sparked the timer on a stopwatch. His duelist friend tuned into the ticking of the timepiece, and tinkered with it herself. "Any chance this could be a key upwards?" She wondered aloud. "I'm not strong enough to smash my way through the attic, neither can I even pierce it with my sword." 

Underneath the table, a sheet of paper with velvet laces as crisp as its edges greeted the boy with cursive guidelines:

"Each side harbors the same pieces: a King and a Queen; Pawns; and Rooks, Knights, and Bishops.

Choose whichever color you like.

The only color that matters is the one on the winning side."

Although the boy could name all of the pieces, they didn't ring any bells regarding how to play. If Melanie couldn't pierce the next floor, then the little old hero could probably do even less to it, especially without his lens. 

As the lady stacked the rooks and kings on top of each other, the hero untied his facial cast, fluttering his eye to a normal, albeit rather scarred, position. Melanie wondered how he recovered so quickly, but before she could form a word, she caught the hero digging into his satchel, and grabbing his emerald, which he blew the stardust from. Clambering around the table to his side, the girl watched him hold fast to the gemstone in prayer position before resting its tip against his iris, and finally, the remnants of the device—the pike, the frame, and shards of glass—clung to the jewel like a magnet.

As if that weren’t enough, when the device finally noticed it had attached to the emerald, a pitch-black light sucked the onlookers’ eyes into a chasm that hurt their heads to watch, but as it died down, the hero just managed to catch the lens, marveling in its immaculacy. His brain begged for the technology, and without second thought, the hero lodged the spectacle into his eye.

Creaking the floorboards with his shaking knees, the boy plateaued from eagerness to reminding himself to wipe the froth that poured from his mouth. His brain tried to pull out the pike that jousted with it, but it was pinned down like a mouse in its trap. Wheezes anchored the hero’s breath in his throat, and as the child fell to his hands and knees, his eyelids to protruded in bubbles. “Cripes!” Melanie hollered, running to the boy’s side and hauling him up by the torso. 

After he gurgled a few times, Melanie set the boy down, and his legs managed to hold him up as long as he could cling to the table, which was when he recalled the climbers' required chess game. But why, the boy wondered, did he need to play this game if Melanie had such easy access all throughout the tower?

The crops of distrust had firm roots, it seemed.  White pawn in hand, the lens spelled out the duel's first move.

"Hm?" His opponent noticed. "Oh, you want to play with me? That sounds like fun, but--"

The hero glared at her.

"...right, let's get to it."

Not wanting to push any more of the hero's buttons, the fencer went easy at first, moving her first pawn only one space forward, contrary to its usually permitted two. She clearly wanted the boy to seize an opportunity, so he did, opening the floodgate for his other bishop.

Three moves later, two blacks and one white were captured, and any recollection of the child's previous moves evaded him, no matter how he tried to catch them. Fortunately, he didn't have to remember as long as his monocle was in service. Black's blind spots quickly stood out to the hero, who swooped in to strike them. Melanie, who hadn't practiced in a while, stood only with her King, her Queen, three pawns, a rook, and a knight within no time. She chuckled, "Gosh, you're a natural at this. There's not much point in prolonging the inevitable, is there?"

With a flick of her finger, the king fell to the board, and the lady ended the game herself.

To the disappointment of the hero, who could hardly get his arms up, the board didn't move by itself, but instead was easily maneuvered around by the boy's companion. She managed to pull herself--and then the hero--up to the 30th floor, where the two of them both sensed a dewy aura permeating their pores. 

Fixated in the center of the room, a statue of a woman with a vase-like gown and shawl across her shoulders held her palms together towards a stained glass panel that shone the sun upon her. Around her, brick pillars held chandeliers by dull platinum chains, and recycled waterfalls poured into cobblestone reserves around a cross nailed to the wall. Entranced by the frankincense that , the hero lumbered forward, tripping on an uneven brick and knocking the statue onto its back. 

“Pardon me!” A voice scolded. “It would behoove you to watch your step.”

Melanie dashed over, heaving up the prioress and chirping, “Pardon us, Bertha! I guess shorty here just couldn’t quite keep a hold of his trousers when he smelled that gum.”

Bertha, finally on her “feet” again, brushed off the dust on her “dress” and sighed heavily. “I suppose it can be intoxicating, although that’s no excuse for sending me onto my back. At least you’re still chipper as ever, lass.”

“A chip?” Melanie clucked, breaking a sweat. “Where? Oh, gee, I’d better fix you up fast!”

While the two girls caught up, the boy couldn’t seem to put his finger on any consistencies in the tower’s rooms, and although from the outside the place seemed quaint, this chamber seemed like it could house and entire mass with room to spare.

The smell of the incense sprung the hero’s hairs up along his back. Didn’t an old man once complain about how he and her screwed everything up? No, that was a dream, I think? Maybe everything was just a dream, the child wondered. Maybe if he pinched himself, he'll wake up.

"Earth to shorty!" The duelist hollered, sinking the hero's goosebumps. His fluffy clouds hardened and fell back to the cobble prison of his uncertainty, and the boy gazed at the stained glass portrayal of angels in flight, seeing a piece of himself in them, yet envying them.

For the first time in what felt like ages, everything converged around the hero and the strangers he met. Time ceased bending against the weight of his heavy brain, and instead lay perfectly still in its packaging. Although the hero recalled an urge to want to play, the oddities striking him left and right progressively took their toll.

Someone did this to him, didn't they? Someone was moving things along here, and he hated it. No one ever told him where to go, or what he needed to go to; not even his lens could illuminate his path forward, nor the road he just traveled. 

What a joke, this hell on earth.

Bertha managed to hold her prayer position for longer than seemed humanly possible. Luckily for the hero, it was impossible to decide who was human and who wasn’t. “Melanie,” the prioress echoed, “indubitably you’ve been studying the Bible as I prescribed, correct?”

The lass bubbled, “Sure have! I’m at the part where the man charges at the windmills!”

 

 

 

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[spoiler=V: Tiphareth]

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[spoiler=VI: Geburah]

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[spoiler=VII: Netzach]

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[spoiler=VIII: Hod]

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[spoiler=IX: Malkuth]

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[spoiler=X: The Ugly Deeds]

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[spoiler=XI: Ruthless Depravity]

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[spoiler=XII: Semper Malum]

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[spoiler=XIII: Undying Future]

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[spoiler=Edits]

July 19

July 20

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Hoping I didn't break any rules in doing this ( / . 3 .)/

~I'm chipping away at it~

❇︎

[Snatch Steal]

Added a ton to chapter 2. Edited a good deal of chapters 1 and 2. 

 

Sorry, colored title, you will be missed.

 

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Added each chapter to the OP. It's in a skeletal phase right now.

[Snatch Steal]

Chokhmah is fully written!

 

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Working on Chapter III

[Catterjune]

I: Crown

I hate this story, not because it's awful but because I have no idea what's going on. Maybe it's good. Maybe it's brilliant. But you had a really terrible way of communicating your vision and putting it down in words.

Opening scene, we have the hero... somewhere. He's on the grass but... that literally means nothing to me. It's not like grass is a new invention.

"He stood on cobblestone"
Oh, it takes place in like... maybe the middle ages? Colonial time? Somewhere in the past.

"He stood on the planks of a pirate ship"
Oh, it's a pirate adventure. Cool?

"He stood on the sidewalk"
Oh, it takes place in modern times.

"He stood on the grass."
... The funk does that mean? Is this Central Park, today? Or is this Mythical Final Fantasy Land in a wide open grass lands with mountains? We don't know.


My second major complaint is the writing style. You only really have two styles here. All the sentences are either:

a) "[someone or something] [performed an action]"
or
b) Terrible nonsense

"The hero blinked"
"the hero streteched"
"the hero leaned"
"The field buzzed"
"The hero lost"
"The hero found"
"the hero reached"
"The boy scratched"
"He peered"
"the hero found"
"the hero could hardly see"
"the boy stumbled"
"he grasped"
"a wind blew"

Just on and on like this, it's repetitive as sheet.

And for terrible nonsense:

"the barrier keeping him from wandering too far"
"the field buzzed as it welcome his slouch"
"each time he pressed his bare feet against the grass, the hero's experience grew"

Like, what the funk does this nonsense mean? What barrier? Are barriers common in this world? Like... LITERALLY what kind of barrier? A magical barrier that hums with electrical force? Or a funking electric fence because he's in Colordo or something?

My advice? Read your sheet out loud. If you feel retarded or embarassed reading it, how do you think your readers feel? Try to read it like you're an outsider. Like you have no idea where any of this is going (hint: Your readers won't either). Add details you feel would better evoke the feelings you want.

"The boy stood around"

Great! What did he see? Was it chilly? Describe how he felt. You're an author, not a funking court stenographer. Don't type what you physically see. Explain the actions behind them.

Alternatively, explain what you physically see, and go into detail. "The Hero shivered as he rolled down his sleeves and hugged at his arms". Yeah, it's still the same shitty [someone] [performed an action] but at least we get a better sense of him, even something minor as "he's wearing a shirt with long sleeves" can go a long way in helping someone paint a mental image when reading.


tl;dr - It's simplistic at times, and nonsense the rest of the times. Take time to describe your world, describe your characters. Lastly, re-read your story, and try to read it from an outsider's perspective. Pretend you have no idea what's going to happen next, and build up to it.

 

 

I might read II: Chokmah at some point, or maybe I won't. I haven't decided yet.

 

Also BTW, posts have a maximum character limit so you might not get the whole story in the first post like you seem to want to try. Assuming you continue, of course.

[Snatch Steal]

I: Crown

 

I hate this story, not because it's awful but because I have no idea what's going on. Maybe it's good. Maybe it's brilliant. But you had a really terrible way of communicating your vision and putting it down in words.

 

Opening scene, we have the hero... somewhere. He's on the grass but... that literally means nothing to me. It's not like grass is a new invention.

 

"He stood on cobblestone"

Oh, it takes place in like... maybe the middle ages? Colonial time? Somewhere in the past.

 

"He stood on the planks of a pirate ship"

Oh, it's a pirate adventure. Cool?

 

"He stood on the sidewalk"

Oh, it takes place in modern times.

 

"He stood on the grass."

... The f*** does that mean? Is this Central Park, today? Or is this Mythical Final Fantasy Land in a wide open grass lands with mountains? We don't know.

 

 

My second major complaint is the writing style. You only really have two styles here. All the sentences are either:

 

a) "[someone or something] [performed an action]"

or

b) Terrible nonsense

 

"The hero blinked"

"the hero streteched"

"the hero leaned"

"The field buzzed"

"The hero lost"

"The hero found"

"the hero reached"

"The boy scratched"

"He peered"

"the hero found"

"the hero could hardly see"

"the boy stumbled"

"he grasped"

"a wind blew"

 

Just on and on like this, it's repetitive as s***.

 

And for terrible nonsense:

 

"the barrier keeping him from wandering too far"

"the field buzzed as it welcome his slouch"

"each time he pressed his bare feet against the grass, the hero's experience grew"

 

Like, what the f*** does this nonsense mean? What barrier? Are barriers common in this world? Like... LITERALLY what kind of barrier? A magical barrier that hums with electrical force? Or a f***ing electric fence because he's in Colordo or something?

 

My advice? Read your s*** out loud. If you feel retarded or embarassed reading it, how do you think your readers feel? Try to read it like you're an outsider. Like you have no idea where any of this is going (hint: Your readers won't either). Add details you feel would better evoke the feelings you want.

 

"The boy stood around"

 

Great! What did he see? Was it chilly? Describe how he felt. You're an author, not a f***ing court stenographer. Don't type what you physically see. Explain the actions behind them.

 

Alternatively, explain what you physically see, and go into detail. "The Hero shivered as he rolled down his sleeves and hugged at his arms". Yeah, it's still the same shitty [someone] [performed an action] but at least we get a better sense of him, even something minor as "he's wearing a shirt with long sleeves" can go a long way in helping someone paint a mental image when reading.

 

 

tl;dr - It's simplistic at times, and nonsense the rest of the times. Take time to describe your world, describe your characters. Lastly, re-read your story, and try to read it from an outsider's perspective. Pretend you have no idea what's going to happen next, and build up to it.

 

 

I might read II: Chokmah at some point, or maybe I won't. I haven't decided yet.

 

Also BTW, posts have a maximum character limit so you might not get the whole story in the first post like you seem to want to try. Assuming you continue, of course.

Thanks for reading my work. Sorry for making it a pain, though, I'm a pretty shabby writer. I don't know why people say I'm good :P

 

I also just wanted to lay out what happened before I went back and edited it. On another note, I've heard people complain about lengthy descriptions; I myself hate them. I guess I was too vague, though. That's what backspace is for.

 

Oh, another thing, what if I said [adjective/gerund][someone/something][action]ed? I find that it's usually best to leave out the words "was", "is", or "to be" in order to keep active voice.

 

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Edited a lot of Chapters I and II. Wondering if [adjective/gerund][thing][action]ed is a little repetitive, too. I think it's an improvement.

[Catterjune]

On another note, I've heard people complain about lengthy descriptions; I myself hate them.

 

I don't hate lengthy descriptions. I hate BAD descriptions. I hate lists. Things that are just describing someone from head-to-toe for no good reason.

 

What you need is a description that further enhances the plot or the characterization.

 

There's worlds of difference between:

 

 

She was blonde, five foot two, pale skinned. She wore sneakers, a pair of blue jeans, a white shirt, and a pink hoodie.

 

"Pleased to meet you!" the blonde girl grinned as she extended a pale hand towards me. Her five-foot-two frame was bouncing on her plain white sneakers as she smiled profusely towards me.

 

I stared at the girl and I blushed lightly. "Uhh... h-hi?"

 

She scowled at me then retracted her hand, crossing her hands across the plain white shirt that I could see under her unzipped pink hoodie. "Not gonna shake my hand huh?"

 

She pouted and stuck out her tongue with a proud little "harumph" as she turned up her nose. She then gave me a giggle, followed by a smile and a wink.

 

At that moment, I couldn't decide whether she was cuter when she was happy or cuter when she was angry.

 

 

The first one tells you what she looks like.

 

The second one moves the story along and explains what our protagonist is thinking and it explains some girls actions and movement to help define their character. Yeah, she's wearing sneakers, but she's bouncing on them because she's excited. She's wearing a hoodie and it's unzipped because she's casual and fun. Our protagonist is smitten with the girl so he's taking note of her every movement and detail. You still get the same information as you did in the first one, but you get a lot more too.

 

There's nothing wrong with a long description. The problem is writing a BAD description. A list is bad. Sprinkling in descriptions while the story is moving along is better.

[Snatch Steal]

Well, this section is more or less dead, so I'm hoping that necrobumping this is okay.

 

Added Binah, Chesed, Malfunction, and Chesed (revisited)