Tremble fell to her knees and clutched the strangers ankle like a prized possession. She could have licked his boot, but it seemed too soon and too obvious. She stuck to basic groveling.
”I pledge my loyalty to you, for your Remark has proven sharper than those I’ve foolishly followed. Your words will shape my soul and your convictions shall be the blueprint of all my actions.” She cupped her hands to her mask and removed it, revealing the sunken features and dark eye circles that made her face look like another mask.
She stared up at Adam, this frightening killer, and prayed to Morgan that he would accept her complete and total submission.
Adam coughed once, rubbed his legs, and refused to make eye contact. The would be conqueror of nations turned to either side as if he had lost something. ”Thanks for the help”. He gestured to the rapids, where the bodies had been dumped.
Bizarrely, he did not seem moved by her generous pledge. Sure her pledge was as insincere as a street urchin with their hands in their pocket, but he didn’t know that!
“Of course.” She said, breathing heavily. “Removing all traces of my comrade's failure was a pleasure, and I’m sure a relief to their widows.” She uttered a strong selection of curses under her breath as she stood up, unfurling like a flower and putting on her best fake smile. “We’ll tell their loved ones they fought valiantly. Anyway shall we continue?”
Adam said nothing, brushing past her like she didn’t exist. Atleast he was heading in the right direction. She scurried after him.
Far away was the lip of what she called the drum, a massive wall of an unknown substance that covered hundreds of miles. It was home to several towns and thousands of people. Gutworth laid hidden within its walls. The fog here was so thick that while the closest entrance was visible, the drum itself was not. It made the barred opening seem like it was floating in midair. Stranger still considering it’s humble nature as a drainage gate.
Hating silence, she whistled a tune. It was deeply familiar to her, and she knew all of the song's wild turns and ecstatic rhythms by heart.
He turned his head back to her, his hair hanging limp but bobbing up and down with the song. “That's a beautiful song. What do you call it?”
“It’s a traditional song sung whenever a greater Opinion sweeps a town and gets rid of the old stagnant one.”
With a sudden crack, he turned his head back, and his pace quickened. “That’s what you think of me then? Something greater?”
”Of course!” She lied profusely. “With the strength and quick thinking you showed in killing my beloved compatriots, how could I not be utmostly swayed?”
”Oh, I’m not that great…” She thought he said, but there was no possible reason someone as strong as him would say something as weak. Perhaps he was asking about the gate!
“You’re curious about the gate?” She said, perfectly helpful even pointing to it, the only landmark for miles. No hidden malice in her voice, no sir!
“Is that the safest route?” He asked, for the first time he sounded annoyed.
”Yes, safest route,” She said. Sweet and sincere, with nothing to hide!
Of course, she was lying through her teeth.
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“You call that a punch? Pathetic! That couldn’t kill a crawlcow,” With a massive kick, Lemure 35 sent her opponent flying into a corner of shrapnel and pain. With a sickening crack, his back landed against a wall section that hadn’t been put in right. His skin ripped on a nail as he slid down, groaning hard.
This section of the sewer system had been fenced off with rusty steel and hard wrought iron. It looked and felt more like some avant-garde art installation than a combat arena. She surveyed her work. Injured bodies were splayed out like blood splatter. Those who had yet to fight clung to the circular walls like spiders, peering down in terror at their instructor.
Lemure 35 was a muscular, towering woman with wild orange hair that spilled out of her helm like a frozen waterfall. Unlike the lower Lemures, her armor was unique, something she took pride in. Her custom-made helmet of eyes and teeth, had a humanoid face on its forehead, like a mole. It was a woman’s face, closed eyes and contemplative. Modeled after her mother. Below that and two rows of teeth was 35’s bulging face and harsh red eyes, bursting out from an opening in the helmet's metallic throat.
The only other opening in her deep crimson armor was a ab window that showed off her profoundly chiseled six-pack that looked cut enough to grate a man's head down to a stub. She spent 90% of her wages on protein. It was worth it.
The one who had bled wasn’t getting up. His sparring partner was in the corner of the arena, rocking solely back and forth and muttering to himself. Common trash. They weren’t ready and probably never would be. She scanned the untested, daring each and every one of them with her piercing stare. “Come on now… don’t tell me you’re all Crawlcows too.”
“My gran ran a Crawlcow farm in the before,” piped up a wiry one, who hopped down from his perch on the wall. “They were tough to kill, and my gran was a tough woman.” He got more animated, his energy misdirected. “We had to use this special hammer to kill one and everything.” It was an invitation to spar, the poor kid didn’t seem to realize.
With a smirk, 35 seized the opportunity. “Is that so? Would you like to demonstrate?”
Thfloor fled to the wall, finding their footing between bumps of metal and makeshift platforms. Those who had attended before climbed up higher and shared excited glances. He looked around with a dumb expression, as if their sudden absence was a shocking betrayal. “D-d-d-demonstrate what?”
“D-d-d-don’t speak.” She said. The imitation of his stuttering was necessary, he would be an object lesson in failure, the cruelty was the point. She looked to the walls. “You all know about Tricks right?”
Everyone nodded, even her target. Tricks were a special perk or power each Remark had, while not everyone had discovered theres, everyone had one. “Well, you’re about to see a special demonstration of my own Trick. They get stronger with use, and good Tricks deserve to be shown off.”
Her guards hid giggles. They had seen her “special demonstrations” before. It always killed.
“You mentioned a hammer on your farm. Something like this?” from a strangely off-color section of empty space, a massive Remark in the shape of a crawlcow hammer appeared. Lumpy, diseased, and covered with excrement and substances somehow worse, it radiated a palpable and pungent power. “I ran a crawlcow farm myself. Actually, no! There's no reason to mince words… it was a slaughterhouse.” She brought the crawlcow Hammer down on the wiry one's head without warning. The impact was sudden and merciless.
The wiry man closed his eyes, terrified.
Only to find to his shock, moments later, that he was capable of opening them.
He laughed, patting himself up and down in amasement. “Oh… you… you got me. For a second there I thought you were gonna kill me. That’s your Trick right?”
“You could say that.” She let him have this moment, it made the punchline all the funnier. He didn’t know, but her Trick was already working it’s magic. His pointer finger on his left hand was twitching, he had yet to notice this in the way everyone else in the arena had.
He approached a group of trainees close to the floor, seemingly friend of him, and held out a hand so they could pull him up. They saw the way his fingers shook. Instead of helping him they climbed out of reach, leaving his arm outstretched as his smile slowly faded. He turned around to try the opposite wall. They did the same.
The space was thick with muffled laughter.
He turned to her, his hands starting to shake. “What- what gives? they’re all acting like I’m dead”
She tilted her head and hocked a loogie. “Yeah… cause you are.”
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And then suddenly, the man exploded. His guts, vertebrae, and secret bone dispatched projectially all over the room. His blood and other assorted fluids mixed in mid-air and splattered the walls and onlookers in the color of indigo. What had been an initiation had become an execution.
There was applause. Hooting and even hollering.
Some of the recruits couldn’t handle it. They left in a mad rush. 35’s men were too overcome with laughter to stop them. The ones who remained cheered and banged on metal till their hands were bloody. She curtsied and did a bow, her cheeks flushed with pride.
“The point is, crawlcows are easy to kill.” Good riddance, she thought, wiping the weaklings blood off of her face. She only needed to kill one to send a message. “Now, who would like to spar next?”
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The condensation of the cliffs above rained down in drizzles. Despite being under mountains, this part of the waste felt like a vast outdoor field, the sky miles and miles of dripping rock. They were coming up to a tall cylinder of white marble that leaned against the drums outer wall. Small scratches and notches in it’s surface a testament to the many Legacy members who used it, Tremble even recognized specific scratches as her own.
Adam looked down at his feet and laughed. Terrified, Tremble turned and got ready to gut him. It was a false alarm, he was staring at his reflection in the wet stone. “Give me a second” he tousled his hair, somehow finding a way to make it look even limper.
Beneath his grime and beard, he was much younger than she initially pegged him as. Older than her, but not by much.
“Hey, hail the conquering hero!” snapped 13, “lets go, you got a city to take over.” She was already scrambling up the cylinder with the help of a rope hanging above.
He climbed casually up the spire as easily as an evening stroll, finding foot and hand holds without even looking for them.
“So what exactly is the story with the uniforms.” Kadmon gestured at her clothes, the exact replica of Lemure’s uniform of The Great Deluge, in all its sturdy greens and yellows, complete with the helm that resembled the laughing face of a Deluge Wyrm. Five eyes close together, to allow more room for the cavernous open mouth grimace that 13 stared out from, with black cloth underneath that hid her face. “You’re part of a group… that you’re betraying, because I killed your friends?”
“Lemure’s Legacys the name! The unquestioned truth within GutWorth. And don’t you forget it!” she chirped.
“For someone who expects me to destroy them, you’re oddly attached.”
Fuck, was he onto her? She hoped the gaping maw of her helm hid the sweat on her face, though the giant bulging eyes of the mask certainly didn’t evoke sincerity.
“N-n-no! No! I despise them with my entire being. I’ve been reformed since your philosophy cut its foul but objectively correct blade into my ignorantly ignorant heart!” She got down on one knee, really selling it. “You are the truth. You are the light. I merely respect the intentions of Lemure’s Legacy, even if it has gone awry. Following orders… such and such. I must have some unresolved fanaticism! No fear, I will adress it post haste. Please do not butcher me for the offense. Please.”
Strangely, he wasn’t moved.
“I’m not trying to make you… feel or think anything” Adam said, frowning. “I’m looking for transport” He gave her a look that made her nervous. “I don’t want to be worshiped; I just want company.”
Fuck. Was she blowing it? Of course she was! She always blew it. Never good enough, never lucky, it was only through ruthless effort and training that she had gotten strong enough to override her innate failure.
Curse this strange man for being so unusual, and curse her for being unable to adapt like a good Lemure should!!
They continued their walk in silence. Despite Adam’s claim that he was interested in conversation, there was none. The tremendous downpour from the drainage waterfall served as a soundtrack to their journey.
A wooden door was lodged into the wall just under the grate, hidden by the green and brown waterfall of refuse. They were in an artificial divot in the Drum, a space of about fifteen feet tall that had been drilled through the outer circumference and covered with muddy soil. The people before them had tried to grow food here, walls of solidified compost the only lasting reminder. Combined with the curtain of water silhouetted outside the crevice, it made the place feel sort of magical, like a secret garden hidden behind a waterfall. Assuming, of course, you had lost your sense of smell.
“Quite nice here, cool.” Adam noted, wandering blindly forward. She got into position behind him, planning to lock the door once he was inside. It was a straight walk to the entrance now and, after that, the arena. He’d be killed in a gasp. It was too good to be true.
He froze with his hand on the door. He sighed heavily before saying. “If any of your group is behind this door, now would be the time to share that.”
Ah fuck, ah fuck, not again! She said nothing in a desperate attempt to stall. He turned back to her quizzically, that concerned look her sisters had shot her so many times.
“... yes, there is.” She admitted. He would kill her if she lied, certainly. Of course he knew how to tell when she lied, he probably knew how to do everything. He probably knew she had been lying from that start! “T-There should be some members there already, setting up for initiation.” If they hadn’t started already, she thought to herself.
“Initiation?” Adam examined her like she was what a bad smell looked like.
“Of course, normal for any self-respecting Murder Game to keep their points sharp!” Tremble said, puffing out her chest. “And after your massacre, we’re going to need more bodies; the sharper the better. Hell, you may have done us a favor, weeded out the undesirables who lacked backbone.”
“The more you tell me about this group, the less reason I see for its continuation.”
“Eh, well… everyone has an opinion, that’s why we need Remarks!” There was a pause. The man was considering this as a philosophy, and not the thought ending slogan it was meant to be. “Listen, I know another way we could go, one where we wouldn’t encounter-”
“No, it’s fine,” Adam said quickly. He sat down and ruffled around in the folds of his shawl for something. He took out his Remark and balanced it on the top of his scarred hand. He spun it like a top and watched the movement as if it was the only thing that mattered. “Go ahead and tell them a traveler is coming through who is looking for passage on a boat, one heading south, preferably. My desire is to be gone from this place within a day.”
He looked up, those daringly genuine eyes, ugh! What was she supposed to say to that? Yeah, she would go ahead and warn them, for their sake, but that request… it was too agreeable, he must have been lying.
He was apologetic as he spoke. “I wish death was not so often the answer, but perhaps if you tell them why the one you called 16 no longer breathes, explain the situation, they’ll understand-“
“No chance,.” she said, crossing her arms. “They’ll want your head on a pike, you know. The former 16 wasn’t a charmer, but he was respected. There are rules to Murder Games. You cannot back out without another duel. They’ll want blood for blood, they always do.”
He sighed, putting a hand to his head while waving about with the other. “Fine, fine, if you have to elaborate and overplay my power, then so be it. Tell them I’m a monster, tell them I eat Remarks for breakfast, whatever you need to get them to flee and resolve this peacefully.”
Fascinating. This man was commanding her to do exactly what she was hoping for. Atleast, this had been her plan B.
“O-okay, sure!” she said, sounding more chipper than she felt. “No promises, but I’ll try my best!” She gave a mock salute and then ran up to the door and closed it with a satisfying slam.
She breathed deeply for the first time in hours. Gah, what a pain this all was. Even the promotion from 16’s death couldn’t make up for the bad taste in her mouth.
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Adam, meanwhile, had become distracted by something in the distance, now aware of how high they had climbed, and how much was below them. Miles upon miles of the Shifting Waters. Structures and crumbled roads sticking out like limbs in bad soup. And literally nothing else. It was mind boggling. It was disheartening.
He turned his attention to what he could touch. In the inner wall of this massive structure, a bit away from the door, was a strange metallic object protruding from a crack. Fascinated, he walked to it. It was the end of a telescope, embedded in the massive metal wall. He put his eye to the glass and looked.
He saw what was on the other side, beyond this wall. It chilled him with pleasure to think how big this telescope was, or how it worked to give him such a view. On the other side of the wall was a self contained porridge of a city, tiny citizens scrambling around tilted buildings poised to fall like dominoes. The architecture was dominated by hues of harsh grays and cold blues, done in a style foreign to Adam. Perhaps it was to the architects as well, for there was no throughline to these buildings outside of their color. In total there were miles of streets and buildings. But being restrained by the harsh concrete walls to an area tenth the size it really needed, the city was filled with buildings built ontop of buildings. No space had been wasted, through most of it seemed abandoned.
Near the edge of the city was a massive tower that dominated the skyline, the top, which had a massive hole on it’s roof that resembled a bite, rivaled the size of the cities wall. At the end of the city was ocean that made up the bulk of the background, drying off into a thin passage of blue that lead to another city that even from this distance seemed far more pleasant than its brother.
From this view, Adam felt like he was in a giant hollow drum. Like a toybox of some celestial child. Eons wide and ages long like the world itself, self contained and never changing. A world that was much nicer, a world that was heavier in the ways that helped, and softer in the ways that hurt. How nice that would be if true.
A world where nothing that happened in the Drum truly mattered. They were all things made for play. Their blood was cotton and their flesh was cardboard. Fighting forever and ever in fights that didn’t matter until their stuffing had consumed the Drum and the cover was closed on them for the very last time.
Capacity believed that, at least at the end she did. Though he didn’t know if it was a wish, like him, or what she truly believed the world to be. Many things about her were unclear near the end.
She would whisper those thoughts to him after one of their many slaughters, telling him these things like they were bedtime stories.
He looked up from the telescope, seeing not the vast cityscape but a wall flecked with rust. With a sigh he sat down, shut his eyes, let his body go limp, and waited to be picked up and used once again.