Lisa let out an exasperated groan. "What the actual hell?" Bath!?

"Just don't worry about it! Drink to forget, right?"

Lisa gave Virigard's small, seemingly innocent form a once over before directing her vision back towards the gaping hole in the wall. I can't believe he just...Lisa struggled to express her thoughts. Her mouth twisted into a scowl. Why am I even worrying? she wondered, somewhat confused by a growing sense of uncertainty in her stomach.

"Virigard," she began, "let's go see Juserin."

"Alright," the jerboa sniffed. She then grumbled something unintelligible like, "only Dean...rum coke..." as she bounded forward. Lisa followed swiftly behind as they traversed the tunnel, edging up on a different path at a fork in the passageway.

At the same time...

This isn't it, Bath thought ravenously. It's like a dead husk, a mindless mass of semi-inert matter...though I'm getting closer. He could smell it, taste it...sense it. If he were a shark, this was the equivalent of blood in the water. What...what is this?

Part of Bath couldn't believe that something capable of producing a mountain's worth of spongy, rock-like tissue actually existed: No living organisms on Illudis indicated that such a thing was possible. All creatures on Illudis ranged within the same bounds as creatures on Earth, unsurprising considering the ecological conditions of both planets were extremely similar.

And yet...here this behemoth lay, dormant beneath Whitesun. How long has it existed? Bath wondered, continuing to marvel at the depth he was traveling through the spongy mantle. Considering how long trees live...and how large they grow on Earth, when exposed to the sun and proper nutrients...this is on the order of millions of years, he realized, his entire being quivering with anticipation. He vaulted forward, his nightmarish mouth tearing a slick path downward, downward...

Abruptly, his teeth met with something more akin to rubber then stone, tearing through the softer material like paper. In a blink, he was deep into this new substrate, his essence seeping out of his writhing worm's body in an attempt to breach the new material around him and sink his metaphorical essence fangs--

Unlike the spongy rock of the cortex he'd previously traveled through, this material...was growing back.

And pushing inward.

What...Bath snarled, changing his form so that his segmented body shot out numerous arms, each covered in rotating, toothy-maws. His speed suffered slightly, but he also left a far greater dent in the surrounding flesh. Essence...isn't effective here. Indeed, Bath normally wafted his essence into other creatures or around physical constructs as a gas; however, in this environment, the tactic failed miserably, the rubbery surface surrounding him remarkably nonporous.

When this failed, his normal course of action was to jab essence tendrils, creating a puncture that he could then proliferate his essence through like a liquid. However, this, too, failed: only the rotating, buzz-saw motion of jagged teeth on flesh proved effective at tearing the rubbery surface.

The logical solution was, of course, to simply form his essence into mini buzz-saw blades of doom...but in the small space of the tunnel, there was simply no room for them to take form...altering his form to produce spinning mouth blades was, on the other hand, a viable option, and the one he chose.

Maybe I should've talked to Juserin first, Bath realized, daunted by the sheer size and difficulty with which he was progressing through this rubbery layer. I'm still a ways off...from whatever it is that's awakened my hunger.

As Bath traveled deeper, his hunger continued to increase. At this point, it was worse than when he first entered the Ritus mansion and was confronted with the presence of hundreds of new animal species, all from different evolutionary backgrounds...their newness intoxicating.

As he continued, he became increasingly wary of the encroaching matter around him: it flexed and seemed to bounce into him, as though trying to crush him or slow his progression. At times, he felt like a morsel of meat traveling down a mammalian esophagus, the rubbery surroundings contracting against him with unrelenting force.

If the worm had a face, it would have shone gleeful as it broke through the rubbery layer and entered what could only be described as the core...fleshy, bloody, delicious. Bath's body distended like a tick; instead of simply burrowing forward, eating as he went, he encompassed that which he devoured within himself. In seconds, he had the semblance of a grotesquely segmented blimp, his spinning jaws no longer needed to rip and tear.

It's absolutely delicious...he cooed to himself, lost in his ecstasy. How long will I be able to feed like this? he wondered, a million maws smiling over his expanded flesh. Long, slimy tongues licked out like tentacles, spearing forward like bedeviled snakes. A long, long time...

---

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Lisa and Virigard arrived at Juserin's house; while renovated by the city-seed's dragonleaf, it was clearly the same place. Lisa almost knocked at the door, before realizing that a goddess would never do something like that.

Just as she was about to barge in unannounced, she paused.

Isn't that the point? she thought to herself. I should just be myself: screw trying too hard to be a goddess.

And so, Lisa knocked, three loud, obnoxious thunks on the outside of Juserin's reinforced estate door. Virigard shot Lisa a complex look, to which she graced a lone eyebrow-raise.

"Yes?"

"Her Radiance Asil the Church is here!" Virigard blurted out, her tail waving back and forth.

Lisa heard the frantic sound of feet thrumming on woody ground. The door opened; in the entryway, Juserin somehow managed to both swing the door open and bow with his legs bent on the ground.

"Radiance," Juserin said, his voice clear. Lisa could sense many more servants around him, their shells all visible through the walls of the abode. They, too, were bowed in supplication, though unlike Juserin, all of their limbs were prostrate on the ground; their foreheads, too, made contact with the floor, their mouth-veils falling to the floor to reveal their dual maws.

Lisa waved a hand dismissively, then walked forward into the house, nearly causing Juserin to fall over himself as he scuttled backward on his knees. The robe certainly didn't help matters, only causing him to slip across the smooth floor.

"Do you have anything to eat?" she asked, walking towards Juserin's living room. The entire house looked suspiciously unchanged, though Lisa credited this with the original's semblance to a military bunker. I guess the dragonleaf had trouble penetrating the walls and floor, she thought. However, the estate hadn't been impervious to dragonleaf by any means, and garlands of twining crimson and gold wound around the interior of the house. However, unlike in other abodes where dragonleaf had a more...complete transformative effect, these vines and fronds seemed almost superficial, temporary.

"Aorun, Pilfam, Deliah," Juserin said after a moment, as though snapping out of a shocked stupor. "Prepare her Radiance something to eat." He turned back to Lisa, following her out to the living room area where he put his finest, most antique furniture on display.

She wouldn't set this room on fire...would she? he wondered, a trace of dire fear in his countenance. Not the Isbosm paintings, he murmured to himself, already preparing himself to mourn the loss of his painstakingly-collected treasures. As he looked at Lisa's smiling face, he saw them blacken in the gleaming fire of her eyes.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked, plopping down onto one of Lepochim's cushion-couches.

"Ah, yes," he muttered. That's new...he lamented, keeping close attention to Lisa's hands and feet, where he knew she started those...blasted fires.

"No seriously, is there something wrong?"

Well, if she insists..."You aren't going to set anything on fire, are you?"

Lisa's lower lids rose up as he mouth flattened out, giving her the semblance of a confused frog...a perfect, godly frog, at that. "What?"

"You destroyed several antique paintings in my entryway when you..." Juserin visibly shuddered, as though reliving an viscerally traumatic experience.

Seriously? Lisa thought, not for the first time in the past few minutes. I thought Juserin was normal!?

"Sorry," she replied, features regaining their composure. "That wasn't intentional." She coughed, then proceeded on: "I did come here to ask about something."

"Oh?"

"Is there...anything beneath the mountain?" She kicked her foot downward into the plush carpet beneath the pillow-couch. "This mountain."

Juserin's eyes began to bug out. "Of course."

"Wait, what?" Bath, Lisa tsked knowingly, Juserin did have info; look who's right, as usual: moi.

"It's an heirloom, passed down for countless years by the kursi that proceeded me," Juserin explained. As he explained, his poise returned, leaving Lisa with the Juserin of expectations rather than the fearful...art connoisseur? Antique collector?

"It's an heirloom?" she asked, shaking her head slightly. "But...is there something alive, beneath the mountain?"

Juserin cocked his head. "Like I said, it's an heirloom."

Translation error? "Can you elaborate?"

Are deities supposed to be so...polite? Juserin wondered. Then again, if she truly is as powerful as I've been led to believe...I can't fault her for not caring how this looks. If Juserin was to show such deference to his underlings around any company of note, he'd surely lose face.

"Beneath the mountain," Juserin began without hesitation, "is a secret, ancient trap." He brushed his robes. "You don't have to pay it any mind. I'm surprised you even asked about it--though I can't say I'm unsurprised you detected it. It is rather enormous, or so I would assume."

Lisa's skin turned clammy. Why would they..."It's a trap for something native to Illudis, or something else...?"

Juserin sighed. Does she really not know? Then again, she comes from that unfortunately...he self censored his thoughts before continuing. That unfortunately unenlightened Earth. "Do humans fear anything on their planet, aside from one another?" Juserin asked, giving Lisa a pointed look.

"...No, I suppose not," Lisa replied. "So what is the trap for, then? How does it work?" Why put a trap under a mountain? That sounds like the most unintuitive strategy I've ever heard of.

Juserin snorted. "It's the shame of all who have previously held my station." He shook his head. "Long ago, perhaps twenty thousand years past, one of us invested all our accumulated wealth on the trap." he growled this last word. "Granted, back then, I hear the threat was far more pressing, even near the fringes of the Intermediary Strand, but still..." he rambled, looking off into the distance. Lisa tapped her foot, snapping Juserin back into focus. "It's a trap for the Doom," Juserin said, though he hushed the last word, as though it were forbidden, his expression grim.

The Doom? Lisa thought, twisting the word around in her mind. The Doom...I've never heard of such a thing. Suddenly, something clicked in Lisa's mind: she recalled something she'd read just a few weeks back. '...They go by many names,' Lisa mouthed, recalling the encyclopedia passage, 'as they have existed as long as recorded history, and have been forgotten, only to reawaken remembrance with absolute carnage. They have been called Catastrophe; it is correct, in most worlds, to actually use this word as a measure word. For instance: "A Catastrophe of Dooms." This is the redundant, if not common euphemism used in many core worlds where their presence is more common. Everywhere else, they are usually referred to simply as Black Holes, or...'

She clenched her jaw. When she spoke, her voice was low and quiet, foreboding. "Don't tell me...the trap is for Devourers?"