Ding!
While waiting on the sixty-sixth floor, a noise rings out and a set of doors split apart, revealing a small white room with little glowing lights on the wall. Led by the two guards from the first floor, all three of us step into the small room and the doors shut behind us.
“Ninety-nine, ninety-nine, ninety... Ah. Here.” The guard pushes one of the glowing lights on the wall and I suddenly feel the room start to move.
“Fwah! It's moving! Dwarf magic! Elevator magic!”
This is the sixth moving platform we've had to board on the way up to the ninety-ninth floor, with each elevator we switched to being identical to the last. However, this elevator is different. They called it the 'advanced' one and I can see why. It's sleeker, quieter, and even faster too. It seems they only exist on the sixty-sixth floor and above though. The only downside to them is that the walls are solid, and I can't look out at the passing floors and people anymore...
“Why is this one so different to the other ones?” I ask. They did feel like completely different contraptions, even if they essentially did do the same thing.
“Dunno” The guard shrugs. “I’m not a dwarf.”
Hmm... Dwarves really are mysterious, huh?
"Oh! Do you think there are any dwarves on the ninety-ninth floor? And how many other prisoners are there? Are there any cute girls?"
I continue to throw questions at the guard who seems the most talkative while the other looks on nervously for some reason.
“None, I think.” the guard replies.
“Fweh?.. No cute girls?”
“No, I mean no prisoners. Just you. Ninety-nine’s empty. Has been for a while now. It’s reserved for the worst of the worst after all. You must’ve done something pretty messed up to be sent all the way to the second-highest floor! Haha—! Oof.”
“Stop telling her things! We’re going to get in trouble again!” the other guard hisses as he nudges the talkative one in the ribs. “And it’s not empty either. Weren’t you paying attention? Two others got sent there today in the same batch. There might even be more, I daresay.”
Fwah! The second highest floor! That makes the Spire... One-hundred floors! I think! They really did end up putting me near the top! I wonder what kind of crime gets you sent to the top floor then? I can't think of many things worse than sexual harassment...
“Hm? So what happened to the prisoners that used to be there then? Were they let out?” I ask.
“Let out? Hah!” The guard chuckles to himself. “No, I think the last guy just sorta... fell."
"Fell?"
"Yeah. He fell. There weren't any holes in the floor but he just sorta fell through anyway. Through a buncha floors actually. Left his clothes behind on ninety-nine and everything too. Found him splattered all over fourteen. Turns out he was Cursed. Crazy stuff these Curses, huh? Probably just a coincidence but he weren't the only one either. That's why some have started calling ninety-nine the 'Curse Ward'."
Curse Ward, huh? Seems like a fitting place for me then! I wonder if it really is just a coincidence though...
"And before that guy there was... Hmm...”
“I believe it was the woman who exploded,” the other guard chimes in.
“Oh, yeah! Girl just up and exploded! Took out all the other prisoners on ninety-nine along with her! Had to shut it down for a bit after that... Hm?” He turns to his partner. “Thought we weren’t s’posed to tell her things?”
“... You started it,” he grumbles back.
Ding!
The elevator doors open again and we step out into the new room—a large '99' is painted onto the floor in white numbers. It's significantly smaller than the other floors we had stopped at on our way here.
Despite being a lot smaller, it’s still packed with as many guards as it can reasonably accommodate, with over a dozen heavily armed and armoured guards standing around or pacing across the room. Each of them looks as if they'd be more suited to being soldiers at war than simple prison guards. Some of them give me a cold glare as I'm escorted quickly through the room.
“I told you we should’ve picked up some new cuffs for her before we came here! We’re definitely getting in trouble for this, I daresay!”
“Don’t blame me! Blame that yappy elf broad for makin’ it awkward with all her humanitarian talk. You elves are always makin’ things so awkward.”
“Yappy? You’re the one who won't keep his mouth shut around the prisoners, I daresay! And a wolfman shouldn't be so quick to play the race card when it was the Warden who—!"
“Ahem” A short cough quickly snaps the two guards from their bickering. A different, gruff-looking guard stands in front of us, blocking our way. Wearing armour of much higher quality and carrying a massive sword at his back, it's clear that this guy is probably a lot more important than these other two.
"I'll take it from here," he says, giving them a slight nod.
“Ah! R-Right!” one of them says, before turning back to me. “Good luck in there. Try not to explode or fall through the floor, eh? Haha—! Ow.”
"Be quiet, you dolt! We are definitely being reported for this! It was a mistake to bring her here uncuffed, I daresay! And If I have to sit through another one of the Warden’s lectures because you thought it was too much of a hassle to...”
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The quarrelling of the guards trails off into the background as they walk away, back to the elevator.
“I like them. They were fun.” I say, looking up at the new guard. “Are you fun too?”
“No,” he replies flatly, roughly grabbing me by the shoulder and pushing me along in front of him.
“Oh? That’s a pretty big sword though...” I turn my head back to give him a sly smile “I bet you’d be a lot more fun if I tried to make a break for it right now, huh?”
Placing one hand on the hilt of his sword, he shoves me forward again with the other, “Turn around one more time and I spill your guts across this floor. Understand?”
“Fwahaha! That’s more like it!” I laugh, continuing onward happily. “I knew you were fun!”
Carrying on ahead of us, we arrive at a metal door with two other guards stationed nearby. Giving a nod, they open it and let us through into a short hallway. Stepping in, I hear the door close behind us, all of the locks clicking back into place.
At the end of the hallway are two more guards and another door. Another nod and another unlocking lead us into a second hallway, exactly the same as the previous one. After the second is a third. And after the third...
We arrive at the fourth door. As the door guards go through the long process of unlocking it, my gruff-looking escort with the big sword breaks the silence between us.
"Inmates of the ninety-ninth floor will be given free rein of the ninety-ninth floor with no guard supervision. All facilities are free for inmates to use and must be maintained by the inmates themselves. All meals and daily necessities will be delivered once per day,” he drones on, as if recalling something he had rehearsed previously.
Finally done unlocking the door, the guards heave it open. A forceful kick at my back pushes me through the open doorway and into the next room by myself.
“All of you sick freaks will rot in Curse Ward for the rest of your disgusting lives. Scum,” he spits, as the doors close between us and I hear all the locks being clicked back into place again.
Sick freak, he says?
“Fwahaha! Pepper Black is a woman who is always in perfect health! I would never get sick!”
As for living here ‘the rest of my disgusting life’... Demons live a pretty long time, you know! That might take a while. I know Mom is well over a thousand now and still in her prime. I don’t plan on sticking around that long though!
My stomach suddenly lets out an audible growl.
Fweh... What did that guy say about meal deliveries again? I better look around to see if there’s anything to eat. Somehow I doubt I’ll find any goblins up here though...
Taking a little walk through the prison wing, the general layout is made up of a giant circular room filled with dining tables and chairs at its centre. Along the walls are small individual prison cells, all lined up at even intervals. Towards one side of the room are several doorways that lead off to other parts of the prison wing, and on the opposite side is the entrance that I had just been shoved through.
Fweh? I don’t even know where to start looking for food... Maybe I should use my Sixfold Mind stance to— Fwah! That’s right! I’ve already been in this situation! Back in the forest! To find meat, I have to think like meat, right? I remember! I already know exactly what to do!
Wrapping my arms around a nearby dining table, I flex all the muscles in my upper body and pull upwards. The metal creaks and groans under the pressure of my grip as it lifts away from the floor.
I suplex the table. It slips from my grasp midway, flying out of my reach and fully embedding itself into the high ceiling.
“...”
I look up at the table buried deep into the ceiling, a light frown on my face as my stomach growls loudly once again.
I don’t remember what happens next. Is this how it happened last time? When is the food supposed to come out?
Suddenly, I feel something behind me tug gently at the hem of my skirt. I turn around to see what it is and—
----------------------------------------
—continue to wander around the prison wing, taking a peek into each one of the cells I pass by as I slurp down my pudding. A single pudding isn’t enough to sate my hunger, but licking the last drops of the sweet springy custard out of the little disposable cup is enough to sate the feelings of restlessness that hunger brings.
Fwah~! So sweet! I wonder if there’s any more pudding where that came from... Hm? Where did it come from? Did I bring it in with me? Did I find it on one of those tables? I can’t remember...
“Oh well!” I shrug, tossing the empty pudding cup over my shoulder. “Pepper Black is a woman who doesn’t question free snacks! Pudding is pudding! It doesn’t matter where it came from, as long as I get to eat it! Fwahaha—! Ah.”
I come to a sudden stop in front of one of the cells. There’s somebody in this one.
Slumped forward in their chair is a small pale girl, the side of her head pressed against the desk in front of her. Seeing how small she is, she seems to be only just a child. Her arms and legs dangle lifelessly from her body, her feet not quite able to reach the floor.
Our eyes meet. But hers are empty, the light completely gone from them. Dead—just like her.
This is a corpse.
As somebody who’s seen—and made—a lot of corpses in her time, I can definitely confirm that this girl is pretty not-alive. In fact, judging from her complexion, she’s probably been not-alive for a good while now.
Fweh? What kind of place is the Warden running here? Why is there a dead little girl in your prison? I feel like I shouldn’t be finding either of those two things in a prison cell, let alone both at once!
Oh! Maybe this is some kind of fetish or something? Is that why he kept sniffing me when I was in line with the other prisoners? Was that a fetish thing too? Is this whole Spire actually some kind of crazy harem-house used to fulfil all of the Warden’s wild fetishes?!
Fwahaha! That sounds great! I’m jealous! I want that! Maybe if I beat him in a fight, I can take this place for myself!
Alright, let’s do it! Let’s turn Surstrom Spire into Pepper’s own personal harem-pad! All the cute guards and prisoners will belong to Pepper! Everyone else will become jerky! A complete takeover! And since every cute girl will belong to me...
I step into the cell with the corpse.
... I’ll start by taking this girl for myself!
Ideally, I’d like my cute girls to still be alive, but I’ve never seen a girl this small before! So this is what a little girl looks like! It’s the first time I’ve seen one! She’s cute! Little girls are cute! She might be a corpse, but cute is still cute!
Waggling my tongue around excitedly outside my mouth, I approach the corpse of the little girl. I squat down next to the desk and stare into her dead eyes, gently brushing a lock of faded pink hair from her pale face.
I’m going to kiss her! This will be the first of one thousand! On the mouth! With tongue!
Leaning my face forward, I bring my restless lips close to hers and—her eyes suddenly flick towards mine, causing me to pause in surprise.
“Seriously?” the corpse says, slowly rising from the desk. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“... Fweh?”