Chapter 5 - Underground Conversations

May’s doll body was under the bed; Kreacher, being the one to see her [Skin Walking] in use, feared the distance might lead to unknown consequences, so both they and Bel-Alis decided to hide it close to her unconscious form when they… took her.

Part of May still flared at the idea of being kidnapped so easily.

After taking the extended hand of Bel-Alis, May asked for her original body and the Priestess gave it without a problem. According to her, it would be weird to hold it hostage when they were working together since they weren’t enemies. Kreacher had whispered to Alis’s ear, low enough that they probably thought May couldn’t listen, that this leverage over her could be invaluable if she were to go against them; a manner of thinking that May agreed with, even if it was detrimental to her.

Still, the Priestess was resolute in her decision and was even the one to, not only retrieve it from under the stone bed, but also to put it in May’s hands. With her naked, porcelain figure resting against her belly, May couldn’t help but think if this wasn’t Bel-Alis's way of gaining trust: sacrificing something to ensure they were equally comfortable with each other. Maybe the Priestess was as eager to forge this alliance as she was.

The suspicious, dominant part of her mind poisoned her with affirmations that she had already fallen into the woman’s cunning trap, entombed herself in the pit she dug with nice words and gestures, but the whispers were the ones to fight against these ideas, reminding her that useful, knowledgeable allies were something May was severely lacking.

Plus, Bel-Alis did have a little naive air around her that couldn’t help but be noticed. Kreacher seemed to be the more shrewd of the two.

Body in hands and a fledgling relationship growing by the minute, Bel-Alis silently prompted May towards the outside of the room they occupied as she dismissed the chalkboard with a wave of her cane, space folding to reveal only unoccupied air; Kreacher returned to their position on her shoulder as if it was only natural. The living doll, not wanting to stay behind in the room, left the bed to follow.

As she did that, her eyes noticed two details about the room May hadn’t noticed before: the stone-made, closed chest in front of the bed 一 hidden by her previous position that limited her perception of what was on the floor 一 along with a complete lack of any light sources in here. There were no candles or crystals, and May hadn’t realized they were absent due to her innate dark vision. A trait that Kreacher and Bel-Alis apparently shared with her.

In the end, May couldn’t help but think the room was bare to the point of impersonality 一 as if it had been built just to serve as a prompt room for her to occupy. It wasn’t only empty, but incomplete.

She… didn’t know what to think about that.

Still, she left the room at the end and met an underground hallway, the ceiling low, but concave to give an impression of depth. The stone candelabras lit up as Bel-Alis walked, shining in this new area and making her flesh eyes sting for a moment. As they walked down the corridor, May noticed three other parallel doors, two of them closed but one open enough to reveal what seemed like an office, filled to the brim with parchment, ink, books and journals; a lone desk and chair laid on a corner, along with an unlit candle.

Every tiny room she had seen until now, May realized, seemed to follow the same sizing. All of them were too tight to live comfortably in, especially considering Bel-Alis’s height, but the woman limped down the corridor with perfect usualness.

The walk was short and silent, Bel-Alis only humming as they went through the candlelit hallway and reached its end, where a stone door, larger than the other greeted them.

“May, were you able to hear the Ability I used before… well, before hitting you the second time?” Bel-Alis said, voice echoing a little.

May stared at the featureless door for a moment and was unable to recall the entirety of what she heard after the first blow. “Something… below?”

“The Chapel. [The Chapel Below].” Alis added, slowly pushing the door open. The grimace on her face as she tensioned her legs for stability was enough for May to help her open it, pushing the heavy stone as it slid soundlessly against the floor.

“[The Chapel Below] is an Ability I got after reaching the Second Step. It used to be called [Delver’s Terrain], another Ability that granted me certain power over a place if I stayed long enough in it. The new one, however, let’s me do something a little different.” The trio walked through the doorway to reach what was the central and last room of the underground settlement.

The space was circular and larger than two of the other rooms combined. Six lit candelabras illuminated the space, giving it more of that uncomfortable, underground warmth that made May’s skin clammy. At the center, another smaller circle made of piled stones stood with a smaller table affixed to it. It was covered in what seemed like a rough, dark gray cloth, similar to the one that made Bel-Alis’s clothes 一 after a moment, May realized it was the scarf the Priestess had been using on the surface.

Under the small altar, a couple of books rested open, as if they were in the middle of being used or consulted upon. One of them even had what looked like a leaf marking the page, while the other had a strip of cloth doing the same.

On top of the altar, however, a bundle of a few papers stood at the center, tied with string and filled to the brim with cramped writing and annotations, positioned in a way that the letters were inverted to May as if it should be read from inside the smaller circle.

“The advancement 一 as a few authors like to call the growth of Abilities 一 now allows me to create this place. The basis of the power is the same, but now the amount of customization and influence I can exert here is beyond anything previously possible.” The woman leaned against the wall, resting for a bit as she moved her wounded foot in circles to alleviate the pain, dirty bandages stretching with the motions. “Not only that, but the Chapel, as I like to call it, lets me move to her if I’m within a certain radius. That’s how we ended up here.”

“So we aren’t under the slums?” May asked examining the rest of the room and noticing the tall ceiling, concave enough to form a dome over their heads, and sparsely covered with odd, different drawings; each one with its own size, shape and position, making the sight a dizzying array.

“That’s how you call it? Ha, I would pay to see the inner city people hearing you say that.”

“Why?” May tilted her head a little, thick curls moving along. “Is it wrong?”

“Well, it isn’t wrong per se. They just hate to call it that. They think it’s demeaning.”

“So what do they call it?”

“I… don’t really know, actually. Every part of the capital, inner or outer, has a different name. And as Crystalia grows beyond its walls, they keep adding new ones. It could be called Goblin’s Armpit and the inner folk would call it creative.”

May nodded but didn’t understand some of what Alis said. What was a goblin? And why was its armpit bad? Did it stink?

Her memories kept taking her back to the nights she spent walking around the slums and observing people. Some stank, but she didn’t know if they were goblins. Although… thinking better about it there were some pretty odd people around sometimes.

Maybe she would need to look for more details than just calling everyone ‘Hector’s subjects’ and be done with it.

“About that, Bel-Alis… What are you exactly?” May asked, a little ashamed for the lateness of the question.

“Oh.” The Priestess thought for a moment, eyes widening as she looked at May, before her face settled on the same small smile. “Yeah, I guess we would be pretty rare around here. I’m what we call a drow. We are… well, we are a race of underground people, more common in Belphegor than here in Ethios.”

“Is that why you have purple skin?” May asked, curious.

“Hum, yeah, that’s why actually. We usually go from gray to deep purple.”

“Oh, that’s nice. What about your eyes? Drows don’t have them?”

Bel-Alis guffawed at that, surprised by the impromptu questioning. She only stopped when she noticed May’s cheeks starting to color. “I’m sorry… I’m not laughing at you. It just took me by surprise. We do, in fact, have eyes. Mine were just…” The smile on her face brightened and grew to reveal all of her white teeth and dark gums. “A willing sacrifice.”

“Okay then.” May nodded, warmth receding down her neck.

“Well, enough questions for now. We do have work to do after all.” Bel-Alis turned to the rat on her shoulder, who had been silent all the while as if focused somewhere else. “Kreacher, could you get me the Handbook, please? My foot is killing me today.”

The small Gifted took a while to respond, distracted by something May couldn’t see, but soon enough gave a small salute and dove under the altar to grab one of the books.

The sight of him effortlessly closing it and them biting down on the book to carry it back reminded May of a dog with a bone in its mouth. Although dogs couldn’t talk. Nor had they Gifts. Or at least she hoped so.

She did not need another one of her usual meals gaining the ability to talk to her. Kreacher was disconcerting enough.

Taking the book from Kreacher while softly complaining as she bent over to grab it, Bel-Alis gave it to May without a second thought. In her hands, May couldn’t help but stare at the odd, small item.

It was thick. Thicker than any of the ones she had at her main hideout, but not the thickest when compared to the other books she had seen in the office behind her. Covering its pages, the book wasn't bound with the usual leather 一 or any type of thicker paper like the cheaper novels 一 but actual black, smooth cloth, adorned with nothing but a painted image that resembled the ones on the ceiling.

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Drawn with silver ink, the thick lines formed the image of a five-petaled flower in an almost childish drawing. The only thing that made it different was the size of its petals, stretched and dropping like veils as if they were unable to support their own weight. The stem wasn’t bent, however.

“It’s a simple preservation rune. It keeps the effects of age and humidity at bay for as long as it endures.” Bel-Alis explained as May softly outlined the image with the tip of a finger. “Go on, open it.”

May looked at the Priestess for a moment, and slowly revealed the first page. The paper had a yellowish tint to it, and was almost entirely blank, except for two sentences in the middle. One was longer and with bigger letters than the other.

“The Gifted Handbook of Necessary Lessons.” She read out loud, stumbling twice at the unfamiliar words. May might need a dictionary for this. “By Isaias Melindrak.”

Bel-Alis, if she noticed the slow reading, remained quiet about it. “Indeed. It’s a classic when it comes to introducing Gifts and the Path to beginners. Kreacher read it a while ago, and I highly recommend you do the same.”

“It… might take a while,” May admitted, embarrassment in her voice as she saw the number of pages it had. Now, this was going to be a trial and a half.

“It’s all right, May.” Bel-Alis calmed her down. “We are not in a rush, but it is important. Use a dictionary if you need to, or ask me if you don’t understand something. We read because we seek to improve, but it’s always a complicated process.”

“Indeed,” Kreacher said, the haughtiness in their voice reducing by a lot as they talked for the first time since they left the bedroom. “We might need someone to talk about the author’s ideas. Some of the things he presents are… Ahem, they require much thought.”

May grinned at the words, although she didn’t comment on the almost slip. She could, in fact, hold her tongue when the moment required. Even if she did snicker a little.

“So this book has all the answers?” She asked, turning to the Priestess, who laughed softly at her words.

“No book has all the answers. This one just has a few of them that you should know.”

“All right then,” May put the book on the waist of her pants and continued. “Is there anything we can do now, though?”

“Oh, yeah. I lost myself a little with the book.” Bel-Alis tapped her cane, trying to remember where she had stopped. “Hum, yeah. You remember we were talking about my Ability, right? [The Chapel Below]?”

“Yes. You were talking about how it changed or something.”

“Right, right. So let me spoil a few things from the book for you.” Bel-Alis cleared her throat to begin. “The Gifted has the same capability of advancing their Abilities as the Faithful. We are the only two paths that have them, by the way. However, and this is important, the way for Abilities to evolve differs between us.”

“For example, those that walk the Steps are granted more Abilities initially, and with every Step, they grow in number or change. The problem is that the route is largely fixed. So you get your Abilities, and they can only advance when you advance.”

“All right, I’m following.” May nodded at Bel-Alis’s words.

“The Gifted, however, have a different way of changing their Abilities. You see, when you discover your Truth through the Dream, you get this… first burst of power to do with it as you like, right?” The woman licked her lips, taking a moment to structure her explanation as May silently agreed to the question. “This initial burst and all subsequent accumulations of Truth will let you change and shape new Abilities as you cultivate your mana. So with enough resources…”

“I would be able to change my Abilities regardless of Rank!” May smiled, reaching the correct conclusion. The grin Bel-Alis gave her when she said that made her pride flutter with joy.

“Exactly!” The Priestess said, staring at the young girl in front of her.

May, however, settled enough to start thinking about what Bel-Alis told her. If her explanation was correct, then she had already done this, hadn’t she? At the alley where she fought George and asked the Gift for something to help the girl she now inhabited, [Lesser Undead Creation] had been initially granted to her, but since it wasn’t enough, she added more Truth to it and it advanced to [Skin Walking].

She had feared it would mangle her Ability, when it was, in fact, the correct way of doing things. May smiled to herself. She truly was incredible sometimes, huh?

Such. Ego. Problematic. Pride. Poison. The whispers cut on her happiness with their remarks, and she mentally clicked her tongue at them.

May couldn’t catch a break with these companions of hers complaining all the time.

“I’ve done it once already.” She admitted to the duo, receiving a confused stare from Bel-Alis. “My Ability to take this body? It was something else before I added more truth to it.”

“Humm, it makes sense. It’s a useful Ability… and it doesn’t seem to be within the scope of the professional ones. I should have noticed it before.”

“Professional?” May asked at the new information.

“Ah, it’s what we call the beginner Abilities. Like [Delver’s Terrain] and [Scholar’s Tools]. They come with a profession in front. It’s just a naming convention.”

“Kreacher has a few of them, right?” Bel-Alis asked the rat that settled back on her shoulder, who squeaked in agreement.

“Yes. We currently have two of them, along with a lesser one and two evolved ones.” They mused for a second, before turning to Alis. “We should use ranks for the Abilities, this could get confusing.”

“By all means, be my guest. Will you use the number of advancements as the parameter?” The Priestess's dark eyeless sockets deepened with new possibilities of thinking about the powers granted by the Path. May was amazed at how expressive they could be.

“Possibly. It seems the most useful, and easier, way of marking things.” Kreacher said, excited with the idea of creating new categories for their Abilities. “Although… should we keep the usual names?”

“Hum, no. Unranked for lesser Abilities and First Rank can comprise of the professional ones. You should begin from there.” Bel-Alis replied.

“How does the rat know so much?” May pouted while entering the conversation, and heard Kreacher sighing in response.

“We have a name. And we were hoping you would notice by now, but we’re not rats. Well, not only that at least.” Kreacher said, arrogance back in their voice, before they gave what was very close to a smirk to her. “Come closer, youngster. Check for yourself.”

Lips tightening at the nickname, May saw the rat sit on Bel-Alis's shoulder and open its mouth wide. The Priestess nodded at her, but her look was resigned, as if this wasn’t something she wished to show, but was harmless in the end. Noticing her expression, May approached with caution, staring at the tiny maw and what hid behind Kreacher’s large, yellow incisors.

Privately, May would admit she had never really seen the inside of a rat’s mouth; usually eating the animal whole before that. Still, she expected the same as what she saw when eating other larger animals 一 pink, wet flesh and the lines and colors of different blood vessels, ranging from red to a greenish blue. What May saw, however, was none of that.

Kreacher’s mouth was dry, black and sick all around. Their tongue was alabaster white, contrasting with the yellow of their teeth and the darkness of their throat. The way it was shaped though, was almost segmented, as if the tongue had been partially cut with scissors and left both parts connected only by a thinner middle part. It resembled a…

“Mushroom?” May skeptically asked, disbelieving the comparison. Her face was so close to theirs that she had no time to react when they puffed their foul breath on her, the air smelling like death and rot all around. She gagged at the stink, eyes watering while the rat squeaked that high-pitched laughter.

“A type of sentient fungus, to be precise. Kreacher needs a living body to parasitize, and that’s reflected in their Truth. Will you tell her?” Bel-Alis said, prodding the rat with a finger.

“We aren’t that close, Alis.” They disagreed, unwilling to share such intimacy. May kept gagging and scratching her nose. Kreacher whispered to Alis. “This might take a while.”

“What were you eating?”

“You know, the usual. Garbage, carrion, some rotten plants. You fleshy people should be ashamed of so much waste.”

“Gods, poor girl.” Bel-Alis sympathized, patting May’s back as she hugged her doll for dear life, bending over while trying to keep her stomach in place. “She might need a shower soon too. Her new body will need it.”

“Yeah, yeah. She’s starting to stink.” Kreacher agreed, not taking into consideration their position to talk about anyone’s smell.

“Plans for later,” Bel-Alis said, noticing May coming back from her nausea. “You alright, May?”

The girl vibrated with anger, sweating coating her after the stench invaded her lungs. Hells, she could still smell it. And worst of all, taste it.

“You! Foul, stinky, decrepit vermin! I’m going to eat you!” She shrieked at the rat, who only laughed at her. The speed with which her hands moved to grab the animal was, however, slower than Bel-Alis bopping her in the forehead with her cane.

“Be careful with indigestion, youngster!” Kreacher snickered, leaving Bel-Alis’s shoulder to hide inside her robes, laughing all the while.

“Enough, the both of you! Kreacher, apologize. May, please don’t eat them. I’m… not sure your new body could stand it.” Bel-Alis began to search for the rat inside her clothes, grabbing the squirming creature. “Ha. Got you. Apologize.”

Watching the Priestess hold the rat towards her, May crossed her arms and waited, tapping her fingers while staring at the animal. She made sure to not be so close Kreacher could do the same thing twice.

“I’m sorry for doing that.” He admitted after a moment. “It was… uncouth of me to behave in such a way against my les一 Mmmm!” Bel-Alis pinched their snout shut, cutting the sentence before he could finish. Were it not for the way she looked at May, silently pleading to let it go, she would continue to provoke.

Good thing she was truly well-mannered. Unlike some rats.

“Moving on!” Bel-Alis raised her voice a little, an exasperated sigh giving the final touch. “May, you said you were rankless, right? That means you still need to use your initial burst of Truth to form your last Ability. When you do that, you will go through what we call a Shaping. That’s how you become Wood Rank.”

May nodded, stirring back into the conversation. “All right. I could do that. But what should I ask for?”

“Oh, we can’t tell you that. No one, in fact, should tell you how to do it. The Path is your own.”

“Do I have to do it now, then?”

“Not unless you want an Ability that might not fit. However, we’ll help you, since it’s beneficial to us as well.” Bel-Alis said. “And to start helping you, I have to explain more of how you could help us. I was planning on doing it later, but this is as good a time as any.”

“See, the Master in the Dark, the God I serve, is the one responsible for Knowledge in our pantheon. That means part of It deals in information and secrets. And that’s what I want from you stormtouched.”

“What will you do with it?” May asked, mind blanking out when she tried to think about what could be used with the details about them. She… didn’t have a large enough repertoire to actually know if it could be more potentially harmful than beneficial to know more about herself and the others.

“Honestly, I don’t know yet. I’m a scholar by trade, so this is research. Plus, I want to do it quickly while the existence of you guys is still secret. Knowledge is good, but secret knowledge is much better.” Bel-Alis answered her with such a calm shrug, May couldn’t find it in herself to doubt it. “In the end, I will probably sacrifice everything to help me go to the next Step. It could prove itself valuable.”

“You will… sacrifice it?”

“Meh. Just use it in a ritual. It will be an ingredient like any other.” Bel-Alis shrugged. “You will have to do the same when the time comes for you to reach Stone. All Gifted and Faithful need to.”

“Still, with my purposes out of the way and explained I hope you can consider more of our relationship. That’s why I will tell you a little out-of-the-books secret about Gifts.” She gave May an enigmatic wink 一 which didn’t seem to work nearly as well when you had no eyelids to blink 一 approached May’s ear with a whisper. “They are reactive.”

“What does that mean?” May asked, confused by it.

“That means… Gifts answer to the wishes of their wielder. And the surest way to know what to wish for is when the necessity arises. That’s why when you don’t know what to ask, you can put yourself in a position where the things you lack present themselves, making it easier to decide. Gifted don’t usually get into the history books just because they are powerful May, but because they are always fighting, improving.” Bel-Alis explained with that small smile, attentive to the way her information was taken by May.

“So I need to fight to better understand what I’m lacking.” May mused, agreeing with the sentiment. She remembered the messy way she had killed George, the lack of practice making it more of a brawl than a refined punishment. Wasn’t combat one of the ways she had found to ensure no evil would come to Hector? Wasn’t that one of the ways she could be in Control?

“Where do we go then? Where can I fight?” May asked finally, and the smile Bel-Alis gave was an almost feral thing, so wide it resonated with something in May’s chest.

“Well, to a dungeon of course!” The Priestess of History said, stating their next destination as a place May had never even seen before. Though Bel-Alis scrunched her nose after that. “But not today. I'm taking you to bathe first. Then to buy some supplies. Kreacher was right. With all due respect, you stink!”