I instinctively take a step back as the ground swells. Flowers frozen in place bulge up along with the dirt underneath, rising in a mound the size of a minivan directly underneath the hovering wreath. They slowly begin to droop down and wither, as if the thing inside was siphoning everything from them, and then they… melt. A slurry of colour runs down the mound, coating it in a thin shell of mottled dull liquid that stops the moment it hits the lower edge of the bulge.
“What the hell…” I mutter in disbelief as my awareness finally gets wind of the changes. “How did this even happen?”
Like a shattering egg, the mound of ground bursts into jagged chunks. A thin membrane barely connects them, stretches for a moment, then snaps with a wet squelch as the pieces thunder to the ground and stick like metal plates blown from an explosion. Pearl gasps as the writing mass of plastic inside shudders and twitches like a newborn bird, strands of squirming plastic extending from it like parasites. Clutter screams somewhere behind me. I don’t blame him.
The magic that rolls off of it is absolutely vile, after all. Like a beach after a tsunami, littered with rotting carcass, rubble, and reminders of a tragedy. But unlike everything else I’ve fought, I can’t place any… consciousness in it. It’s just a mass of plastic with way too much magical power, and no desires of its own. If it’s deadly, it’s deadly like spent nuclear matter–passive and harmless if buried right.
Which poses the question… what the hell put it here? And how’d they get past the guardian tree? The only answer that comes to mind is the system itself–which means the tree is at least a little complacent, since it could’ve gotten rid of the stuff on its own if it actually wanted to. Or… maybe it wants to, but the system made sure it can’t. That’s one very important distinction.
Horrible burbling slurps, like an animal trying to escape a tar pit, hiss free from the mass. I shake my head and put all thoughts except getting rid of this thing out of my mind, flip a few projectile-filled coins into my hand, and feel at my pre-prepared shields with my awareness. Their fragile forms shudder at the smallest touch, ready to explode into protection at the slightest thought. I spare one last glance over my shoulder at Clutter, and to his credit, he’s holding his ground. Could be because his legs stopped working, but hey–I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Be careful, Shelby.” Pearl tenses, and her gaze becomes razor-sharp. “There’s something really weird about this. How could that thing do the damage Clutter said it did?”
I furrow my brows in confusion. There’s enough magic here to do some serious damage; what’s with Pearl’s worry? The thing’s nearly screaming, sitting there menacingly, and just destroyed a fairly sacred part of a graveyard guarded by a ghost tree. That’s more than dangerous enough for me.
One of my coins slips and slams to the ground. I blink in surprise and stare down at the projectile–still ready to be fired–sitting there like a quarter in the gutter. Something twists in my gut. I’ve never dropped a coin before. Not even close.
I trail my gaze up to the mass. It did something. I flex my fingers just in case, but sure enough, all of them still move just fine. No weakness, no numbness, no involuntary movements. All that’s off is the one missing coin that’s sitting on the ground.
“Clutter!” I call without taking my eyes off the mass. “Did you see anything at all before you ran?”
A series of whimpers and barks answer me. I take it as a ‘no’.
I raise my coin-filled hand and rub my wrist as discomfort writhes through my body. The thing still hasn’t attacked. It hasn’t done much of anything. It’s just… there. Like a bomb in the middle of an empty street. Staring at it fills me with disgust like nothing else. Something so visceral that I can’t help but want to remove it completely and utterly.
It… I… I lick my lips and squeeze my wrist tight. There’s a reality here that I just can’t grasp. I need to grasp it. Purification flows into an empty coin, and with a thought, it shatters into cleansing salty mist that whirls around me in a maelstrom of magic. Violent empty winds carry it away in moments, but for those few seconds, I can feel the truth.
The mound is putting something off. It’s making me want to hate it. Just like the boulder did, but… stronger and far more insidious. I couldn't even tell the sensation was magical. I flp my remaining projectiles through my fingers, keeping them moving so I don’t succumb to whatever made me drop one in the first place.
Everything is yelling–no, screaming–at me to attack this thing. Even the tree asked me to get rid of it. But that one moment–that clarity through the noise–it complicates things. I grit my teeth and summon a shield around myself, not quite form fitting since I don’t have the power for that yet, and create another cloud of purification on the inside of the shield. Thanks to Fleur it doesn’t destroy my shield, and without anywhere to go, the purification sticks to me like glue.
As the seconds tick by, my mind focuses on the mound. It’s still absolutely disgusting and unnerving, but in the ‘gross, wiggly thing that just popped out of a graveyard’ way. Like… if a coffin got exhumed and it was all rotted away and crawling with worms. I shudder at the noises, which are still pretty disturbing, and trail my eyes up the plastic that connects the mound to the wreath on top.
Which… now that I think of it… I completely stopped seeing the wreath when the mound started doing its thing. Was that purposeful? Because the damn thing’s hovering, like, three dozen feet off the ground and the dripping plastic connection is much thinner than before. It looks like spiderweb now instead of the thick, wax-like trail of a minute ago.
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I rub the back of my head with a growing frown. “What the hell am I supposed to do, then? Get the wreath away from the mound?”
Pearl shrugs. “It’s as good a guess as any. Be careful, though–even if you’re not supposed to fight it, doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.”
“Yeah, good call.” I say with a nod as I lean down to grab my dropped coin, then flick it towards the thin plastic threads. It bursts into a projectile inches from my hand, soars through the air, and severs the threads easily. “Oh. I didn’t think it’d be that easy. Must mean there’s–”
The wreath smacks off the top of the mound with a dull thud. It tumbles down, somehow finding itself on its side, and manages to roll down towards me. I stare at it as it rolls perfectly to my feet, knocks against my boot, and stops on a dime. That’s… not what I was expecting to happen. There has to be something else.
I lean down, pick it up, and run my shielded hand over the plastic. It glorps away like globs of soft wax, leaving a plasticy residue over an actual gravestone. The letters are a little hard to read, which is strange, since the rest of the graveyard’s wreaths were pristine. Almost like this one was vandalized–or made shittily on purpose.
“Marywell Den.” I squint down at the carving, and I’m pretty sure I’m reading it right. “Wait, where’s the dates? And the… inscription thing?”
Turning over and checking the wreath all over gives me nothing else to work with. I carefully scrape away the rest of the plastic, just in case it’s covering something, but it doesn’t reveal anything new. The only thing on this simple stone wreath is a name carved in extremely simple letters. If I had to guess, I’d say they were done with a machine–not by hand.
I turn and hold the wreath up for Clutter to see. “Clutter! Do you know who Marywell Den is?”
He vigorously shakes his head. From on the ground. Where he’s covering his ears with his hands, has his tail curled up against his body, and is shaking so bad that it looks like he has a bad fever. But he hasn't run yet, I’ll give him that.
My awareness flares without warning, and my shield shatters around me. I whip around and summon another shield just as a maul of plastic slams into it, buzzing with so much magic that the stuff boils and burbles like an active volcano. It basically splatters against my shield, barely putting any pressure on it. Then it just… does.
That’s the best way I can describe how the splattered plastic suddenly crushes another shield like it’s nothing at all. It doesn’t feel that much stronger than anything else I’ve blocked up until now, but it’s like… well… my shield’s failing. The plastic latches onto it, does something to it, and then it just stops working.
I take a step back and throw up another shield as the plastic drips to the ground in a second puddle. It doesn’t move back to the mass, though, and seems to harden to the consistency I’m used to in seconds. A swirling disruption on the mound draws my attention just enough to notice the slight magical shift at the center of it.
Reaching up to tap Pearl’s shell, I ready another shield just in case.
“There’s something inside of it, but there’s too much plastic for me to make it out.” She says as she leans forward as if to get a better look. “I thought the wreath was doing it, but apparently not. Um… I think I should be able to get a good glimpse of it in a few more blasts. Do you have enough shields for that?”
I nod quickly as plastic splatters my shield. With a jump to the side I shift the shield so I can get through it before the plastic shatters it, and throw another shield up before the first one dissipates. The attack still goes through like before, which hopefully means the mound isn’t in control of the plastic after it fires it.
Pearl goes completely quiet as she watches the plastic fall. I can feel her focus reverberating through my awareness, but it’s a little split. Like she’s watching out of the corner of her eye instead of putting her entire mind on it. Which is a little weird, but I trust her, so I don’t say anything.
For the next few minutes all I do is stand, wait for some plastic to hit me, take a few steps to the side, and put up another shield. Then I do it again, and again, and again. For the first minute I hold onto the fleeting hope that the mound’s going to run out of plastic at some point, but by the fifth, I’m damn sure nothing’s changing. The thing in the center of it feels just as far away, the mound doesn’t look any smaller, and there’s enough plastic littering the ground to fill a toys-R-us.
“Hey, do you need more time?” I whisper. “Because I’m starting to think I should just destroy this thing.”
With a scowl, Pearl shakes her head ever so slightly. “There’s something weird here, Shelby. Really weird. Every time I feel like I get close, the thing slips away. Like it’s somehow running away from my awareness, but it isn’t actually moving. I… um… I honestly don’t know what’s going on.”
I raise an eyebrow as another plastic burst shatters my shield. “You don’t know what’s happening? Then… shouldn’t that be the green light for me to destroy it?”
A short yet thoughtful silence follows my question. Eventually, Pearl breaks it with a sigh.
“Whatever’s happening is obviously the system’s doing. But because this was put in place before you came to this world, the system didn’t want anyone seeing what was inside the mound–not just the Worth Classes.” She raises a hand to her face and leans her cheek on her palm. “Honestly, I don’t think anyone was even supposed to sense the thing inside–our awareness is just too good. So go ahead, but be really careful when you destroy it–there’s a chance it’ll have some backlash.”
“Gotcha. Backlash.” I nod and snap two projectiles forward, which instantly scream into magic and motion. They tear through the plastic like wet sand, sending scores of the stuff in every direction. More and more of it flows out of the mound by the moment, and my projectiles just keep spinning against the surface.
That’s… not a good sign. It’s like the grave’s pulling up more and more plastic from down below–or maybe it can just make more of it on its own. Just in case I throw up a three-layered emergency shield, then toss two at Clutter to keep him from becoming accidental collateral damage. He doesn’t even look up when they encase him in protective magic.
The mound warps, twists, and bubbles as I stare at my projectiles. I feel my connection to them start to weaken as the magic inside runs out. Holy shit, there’s so much plastic in that thing. Looks like I’m going to have to–
RUMBLE.
…Uh-oh.