CHAPTER FIVE: RISING TO THE OCCASION

Waking after a not so restful sleep, Jack and the others prepare to depart from the Village of the Great Flame. Kaizu double checks the map with the help of Steve, and he confirms their fears. There’s more than one hive.

“That flesh pit you ran into? Yeah, that one’s maybe a fifth of the size of the real one. It’s a day’s walk west of here, and your destination is two days north from that,” Steve explains to the group, his voice a distorted mess. What did they expect from a being made of pure fire?

“Don’t we want to avoid the core?” Kaizu asks.

“You would, but your only other option is a town with randomly appearing spatial anomalies that could rip you out of reality in an instant. They do take you almost all the way to where you want to go, The Dark, but it’s not worth betting on, trust me. Place it infested with Evictus Worms,” Steve explains, before gesturing to the ground beneath them. “One more thing. Notice how the ground here is devoid of all signs of monster infestation? No flesh, no organs, no nothing?” The group hadn’t noticed it, but it was true. “It’s because of the Great Flame. I suggest taking some with you via torches or magic. That’s our best bet of making it through the hive. Buggers will think twice before touching us with this nearby.”

After he says this, the group moves outside, before the Great Flame. Maddison reaches out her hands and pulls a small ball of flame towards her, using it to sheathe one of her knives in deep crimson fire. Jack does the same with his sword.

Kaizu then grabs the group’s attention, laying out his plan of attack. He tells them, “I believe our best plan of action is to follow the recommendation Steve gave us. Furthermore, our group can be laid out in the same configuration as it has been, with Jack in the front, carrying Tammie, and Maddison and I in the back, carrying Adam. That way, both out front, back, and flanks are covered.”

“I like your thinking, kid. One problem, though,” Steve sighs. “I said they’re afraid of it, not that it’ll make you invincible and untouchable to them. Tease them too much with your succulent meat and they’ll get ballsy. A cornered carnivore is all the more dangerous, right?”

“So what do you recommend?” Jack asks.

Kaizu answers in Steve’s stead, “I say we go fast enough that they don’t have time to ‘get ballsy’.”

“Yeah, that’s basically all you can do,” Steve agrees, nodding.

“Hey Kaizu,” Tammie coughs, “Never thought you’d take charge so long as Jack still exists.”

“Rude,” he responds, “but think of it this way. I’m the nerd here, right? And Jacques’ journeys down here were always my favorite thing to read about. I’m just rising to the occasion when my skill set is useful.”

“For once,” Jack mumbles.

“Hmm. Someone’s upset they can’t fight their way out of this,” Kaizu teases, a smirk growing across his face.

“We should get going,” Maddison pipes up, then turning to Adam, “Think you can tough it out?”

“Yeah, but having my god arm equipped for so long is really draining me,” Adam replies, slowly heaving himself to his feet with Kaizu and Maddison’s help.

As they depart the village, Steve looks back longingly. This is the first time he’s left in centuries, no, millennia. His new companions would never replace the memories he made with his party down here, but they would certainly help remedy his long felt loneliness.

As Jack surveys the land before them, the dark abyss of nothingness, a pool of water forms at his feet. “Was I standing in mud?” he thinks. “No, it’s like it materialized out of thin air.” He thinks little of it and presses on.

…

After a mostly uneventful but nonetheless stressful day's walk, the crew reached the true core of the hive, a place once known as Bridge Town. All the while Steve regales the group with tales of his life down here in the underground.

“Ah, there it is,” Steve growls, “Bridge Town. You know, I once jumped down into the flesh pit to retrieve my favorite adult magazine. Lovely girls in there really. The magazine, of course. The pit’s girls were either digested or still being used to breed. Terrible fate, that. Anywho. It took my party a good few hours to get me out of that one. It was rather stupid of me to do that in retrospect, but that annoying librarian just couldn’t appreciate the human form as I could. That's why I disintegrated her with my sacred flame spell.”

All of Steve’s stories had been of this nature. Gruesome, sexual, uncomfortable, or all three at once. Nobody had told him to stop however, as every once in a while his stories had a small bit of helpful information in them, and evidently he wouldn’t simply tell them the useful information. That, and it filled the otherwise deafening silence.

Kaizu breaks the silence after the end of Steve’s latest story, telling him, “Your stories are all so gruesome, disgusting, lewd, and vulgar.”

Tammie perks up, asking Kaizu, “I know, aren’ they great?!?”

“No!” he responds, “I just used four NEGATIVE adjectives to describe them. I’d rather suffer through the silence than listen to that crap. Don’t you have anything better?”

Steve stares at him angrily, but sighs, speaking, “I do have one. There once was a party of… actually, nevermind.”

“No, go on. That one didn’t have a swear word in the first half a sentence. That was a good start,” Kaizu remarks.

“No. That story would have been much worse. If you thought my stories were bad because they were inappropriate and immature, this one is just dark and depressing. At least when I jumped in the flesh pit and vaporized the librarian there was a hint of comedy because I was chasing a porn magazine. This one’s just distressing,” Steve finishes before going silent.

Jack speaks up, looking back at his new companion, “C’mon, you have to give us a little more than that? Does this story at least have a name?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs, “I guess it does. It’s name would be ‘The Flow Saga: The rise and fall of Dimitri, dickhead supreme’.”

“Dimitri? I don’t recognize the name, old friend of yours?” Jack inquires.

“Something like that,” Steve responds, quieter than he’s been since they met.

“Kaizu, do you know that name?” Jack asks, looking over his other shoulder.

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Kaizu shakes his head, “No, who was that?”

“It was a long time ago. About thirteen thousand years to be exact. Dimitri was a channeling co panino of mine who was consumed by a megalomaniacal desire for power and control, leading him to make a deal with The Nowhere King. He ruled the entire Galaxy for over two and a half centuries, and nearly destroyed it twice,” Steve looks off into the distance, continuing, “It took an alliance of nearly every free person left to take him down. During the final showdown I decapitated him with my heavy hand bankaxe and-”

“Wait, you’re what?!?” Tammie asks enthusiastically, her eyes gleaming at the thought of a new type of weapon she’s never heard of.

“My heavy hand banjaxe. A banjo with a hammer on one side and an axe on the other. I am somewhat of a musician and entertainer. Or well, I was. Back when my hands still existed in the physical realm,” he answers sadly, looking at his stumpy ghost hands.

The group, having reached the first bridge for which the town gets its name, begins to cross over the massive flesh pit towards their final destination to the north. What would compel the people of this town to build over such a dangerous and evil entity is beyond the crew, but what is certain is this town was not simply converted into the state it is today, rather it was always built with the intention of remaining suspended over this ominous entity. Furthermore, according to Steve’s stories, the two flesh pits of the underground have been here for thirteen thousand years. Along with the mask village and the village of the great flame, these two organisms are the only landmarks that remain to this day of the once densely populated underground. The two villages are understandable. They were under the protection of deities. The flesh pits, however? They remain purely due to their massive size. Nigh immortal progenitors of monster kind, these hive cores have existed longer than Vale has been called Vale, and likely before it was called Herebe. Even after the apocalypse stones mined by the dwarves of Myrdeen Mining ran dry in this region, the monsters remained. No wonder the capitol had its fair share of incursions with these beasts. Their home was here first.

…

Near the entrance of The Dark, and by extension the Nowhere King’s tomb, Steve asks the group to stop. He tells them, “I simply wish to pay my respects to enemies and allies alike, fallen on the fields of battle.” He kneels and prays upon a small patch of blood red roses, or at least kneels as much as a floating ghost can, and prays as well as his small arms allow him. When asked who he was referring to, he responds solemnly, “Too many to list. Friends, brothers, enemies of myself, enemies of Dimitri, people we didn’t try hard enough to save, and people we never gave the chance they deserved. Never heard out. Those probably hurt the most.”

The group gives him his space and the time he needs. Then they continue onwards, entering The Dark.

…

The Monsterpedia, a compendium of knowledge about monsters, written by the combined efforts of dozens of adventurers over millennia, describes Evictus Worms as such: “Among monsters, beings known for their evil and their cruelty, none are as despicable as the Evictus Worm.” Its name consists of the words “evict” and “ictus” the medical term for a stroke or seizure, and this gives a great idea of what it will do to those unfortunate enough to enter its grasp. Most worms are around twenty meters in length, with the largest recorded specimens, the seven Evictus parasitising the kaiju Scylla, classified as the subspecies Evictus titanus, are around seventy meters in length. Coiling themselves into pitted ceilings, they use a combination of excrement, decaying bodies, and even live organisms to create a kind of shell which protects them from outside harm. It also helps anchor them to the ceiling when they lunge at prey at speeds of over thirty kilometers per hour.

Once prey has been captured, its internal organs are removed, this the ‘eviction’, and the prey is filled with the worm’s eggs. These are then continuously fertilized and replaced, sending ripe eggs throughout the area the worms inhabit. This is done until the host can no longer survive, then it is eaten. If the prey is not rescued before their organs are removed, which can take as little as three to four hours, there is no hope. Dr Dinamo’s research into Evictus worms was the first sign to him, and others, that myths of monsters imprisoning and reproducing with human women were no mere myths.

The Adventurer’s Guild handbook states in rule number thirty-three: “When adventuring underground, never neglect to watch the ceiling. It only takes a fraction of a second to be caught, but days to die. If you can not save an ally caught by a worm, do them the kindness of ending their life. To become a worm’s host is a fate far worse than death.”

As is plain to see, Evictus Worms present a grave threat.

What would become plain for the group to see is that ceiling of The Dark is practically made of the damnable creatures.

…

Our heroes are only a few short hours walk from The Sarcophagus, their final destination, but have chosen to camp out and rest for a while. Behind them lies a path of carnage, one Evictus worm after another. Because they were warned going in, they were able to be ready for a near constant onslaught of worms. This colony of worms, covering an area the size of a small city, was just a few scattered worms back in Steve’s era, but thirteen thousand years, and an unknown number of hosts later, and it covers every nook and cranny of The Dark.

Jack, leading the group, is responsible for most, if not all, of the slain worms. His flaming sword held in his left hand, he has sliced and diced for over a day now. Finally getting to rest after all of that has been quite the thing to look forward to for him.

As the group sleeps on the ground, Jack and Maddison discuss the past few days. “If only we went with my plan. I could’ve had us at the guild hall days ago,” Jack cries, knowing the last cannot be undone.

“You did what you thought was right. And you went with Kaizu’s plan because you wanted him to trust you more. Nobody blames you for what has happened. Well, maybe Kaizu a little, but he would never hate you. I just don’t think he’s capable of that,” Maddison reassures her brother, giving him a big hug.

“Aren’t you two a little old to cuddle? People might get the wrong idea,” Steve teases.

Maddison glares at him with her red eyes, warning, “I’ll do what I want. And if you tease our relationship again, I’ll exorcise you. Only I get to make those kinds of jokes.”

At this Jack pushes her face, pulling her cheeks and telling her, “C’mon, we talked about this. It’s just weird.”

Just then, Kaizu walks up from out of the darkness, telling the siblings, “I gotta take a leak. Jack, come with me.”

Jack responds mockingly, “You’re a big boy, right? Go by yourself.”

“I need your guys’ flames so the worms won’t get me,” he whines.

“Ugh, fine. I need some space from my freaky sister anyways. She went from wholesome reassurance to twisted sense of humor real quick,” Jack sighs, standing up. He follows Kaizu as he does his business.

…

Tammie sits beside Adam as the two watch Kaizu and Jack walk away. Tammie asks Adam, “How are you holding up, big man?”

“I could be better,” Adam groans, “but my armor dulls most of the pain.”

“Hmm,” Tammie says.

“What’s on your mind?” Adam asks.

Tammie stares at him, her eyes and mouth still stained by the subtle yet continuous fluid seepage. “I don’t know, I’m just still wrapping my head around the fact I’m infected now. My entire body stings. I think my poison is what’s seeping from my eyes and mouth. Guess being part frog has backfired. Bet Jack and Maddison don’t have to deal with their own body melting itself,” she tells him, staring off into the distance. Whether she randomly picked that direction, or is trying to get a peek at Kaizu without pants on is uncertain.

Adam pats Tammie’s back softly. “They have their own unique struggles,” he explains, “and you have yours.”

“People won’t see me the same anymore. Not that I’m an Infected. I can’t even use Arts, but I guess I’m a monster regardless,” she groans, flopping backwards onto the ground.

“You’re not a monster, and we all see you the same. Aren’t we people?” Adam asks.

“You are,” she acknowledges, “but we’re like family. Of course you guys accept me, but what about the other guild members? The citizens of Centuria? Hell, the law enforcement? My personality and law don’t exactly coexist well.”

“You’ll be fine. Whatever happens we’ll make it together,” Adam says, placing his hand on Tammie’s arm.

“That’d be more reassuring if I didn’t interpret it as I’ll drag you all down with me,” she replies. She rolls over, away from Adam’s comforting arm, and tries to sleep. However, the pain is too great.