Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance
And Not To Roll Ch: 38
The little octopus creature found itself floating in what amounted to an old pickling jar, sitting on the corner of the bar. He… or she, felt like one of those creepy bar snacks that locals try to trick tourists into eating.
Whether he was Sarah, Ace, or the faintly remembered Gary Ward of so long ago, his mind was all muddled and confused… and the damn weirdos were not helping.
With a gut full of Sarah’s half digested memories and thoughts swirling and mixing with the remnants of Ace and so many others over the long years, reality was feeling a little shaky to begin with. Having her fresh new body vanish out from under her without even a mild jolt or a moment’s discomfort shook things up even more.
He spent a few minutes staring out the side of his jar, just watching the strangers cavort and dance together. The instruments the youngsters played stirred even more memories from his darkest depths. Their shapes, tones and most importantly, the music they played together summoned memories he’d suppressed so long ago.
A tiny, venomous octopus, lost in an endless tropical sea had little time for music or dreams of a surface life among the trees. Surviving had been his priority for so long, when he finally found his ‘talent’ for taking over the bodies of vertebrate beasts, with his paralytic venom.
The trick was getting into the victim’s braincase, to take the place of the prior occupant without doing too much damage to the body. Devouring all the thinking and reasoning parts, while leaving the autonomous functions untouched had been tricky at first… and super frightening.
There had been no one to instruct him, nor really much of anything going on where and when he landed on the sunny, shallow reef, unknowably far from home.
His new species was the only sentient life native to this little pocket world and though they were intelligent, creative, cooperative and ruled the sunlit shallows and warm reefs; they had no civilization worthy of the name.
They hatched from egg clusters hidden under rocky overhangs or shallow caves, watched over by their parents, as the elders died and the tiny new lives wriggled out into the open sea. They emerged fully formed, as tiny sentient adults, bearing the race memories of their people in their tiny bodies.
His kind lived for a single turning of the seasons and perished within hours or days of their broods’ emergence… Theirs was a tranquil and unexamined existence, untroubled by deep thoughts, war or politics. To cavort in the surf for a brief lifetime, hunting, mating and finally, to watch as the next generation arrived, seemed enough for the rest of his kin.
He’d appeared just as suddenly as any of his contemporaries, also fully formed, floating free in the shallows, with almost none of the racial memories his ‘peers’ possessed. Instead, he held the strange and damaged mind of an alien primate, struggling to comprehend his new life.
The reality of his situation landed hard, as his few friends and contemporaries; fellow blue ringed buddies he had developed ties with in his short time with them, each paired up and completed the cycle of life with their mates, as the storms of spring subsided and summer came to the reef.
They all departed together for the next life, leaving him with a fresh batch of grief, loss… and their teeming broods, swimming on his little patch of reef. The hatchlings immediately began looking up to him in wonder, as a venerable elder and asking for guidance.
The cute little rascals needed what help he could give; but long term, that was way too much responsibility for a guy still trying to figure out the whole ‘reborn as a tiny sea creature’ thing.
So, feeling weak and a little selfish, he kept his distance from the new brood, helping them where he could and providing some guidance early on. Eventually they began pairing up, which he had less than no interest in. Even the cutest octopus girls failed to arouse him at all. He quietly swam away on his own, when the time came for the next generation to appear. They would have to fend for themselves, as would he.
His kin possessed little curiosity or interest in the world around them, but he felt a burning desire to see more, learn more and explore, so he swam away, seeking land, or maybe just a more interesting reef to hang out on for a while.
Eventually, the small creature ran out of shallows, reefs and almost atolls and was forced to brave the deeps. Swimming over the endless depths, headed for who knows what had been terrifying, but fortunately uneventful.
It was a long and frightening journey, squirting himself along the surface, just below the waves with his eyes constantly searching for predators.
Eventually he crossed into a warm, shallow gulf, with a string of low islands in the distance, calling him over with waving palm fronds and comfy shallows. He swam for them, lost in giddy excitement and eager to see new things, whatever they might be.
That was when he’d found his ‘talent’ for brain eating and body snatching. His first time had been with a particularly insistent moray eel. It had decided to eat him a few hours after he’d arrived on his new reef, sparking a short, desperate battle for survival.
Gary lost an inch of one of his tentacles to the flashing jaws that rocketed from a dark hole in the reef. Swift, hungry and stupidly confident, the long, muted gray ambush predator snapped at him just a moment too late.
The eel’s wicked, hooked teeth were for piercing and holding prey, not shearing flesh. If it got a bite, he would get gulped down in just a few quick strikes of that viciously fanged maw.
In a desperate panic, Gary jetted along the seafloor, dashing through the reef, pushing his body to the limits to slip around behind a brain coral and sting his pursuer just once, right in the cloaca.
That was all it took; seconds later, the long, slippery bastard was floating in a loose, messy tangle on the bottom, paralyzed completely by his venom.
A number of hungry mouths responded to the flurry of activity and the small amount of blood spilled into the water, so the exhausted fellow hid in the gaping maw of his foe. The lesser fishes were reluctant to approach the massive eel, even if it was immobile, but they lingered, waiting to see if there was a free meal on offer.
Trapped inside the beast’s fang filled mouth, he administered a fresh dose of his venom to his terrifying shelter, when it began to twitch again. Eventually, the waiting nibblers started to close in, so Gary acted out of desperation, seeking shelter in the beast’s thick skull…
The brain in there wasn’t doing much, beyond taking up space, so he took a taste, once he found a passage inside, near the base of the skull.
Electric shocks, a weird metallic flavor and sudden flashes of moray eel thoughts and ideas filled his mind, as he munched and wriggled deeper in. He made a space big enough to fit his boneless body in and slowly began exploring the topography of his temporary home.
When a tentacle touched an intact section of brainstem, the energy inside rushed over him in a wave, bringing a crushing darkness down on him suddenly.
Gary woke, swimming along the bottom, in the half alive body of the eel; battered, confused, numb and in shock at the sudden development. He had few memories of how exactly he’d wound up inhabiting his first zombie body and little to go on. Weeks of trial and error later, he was a greater black reef shark, ten feet of tough, hungry fish, guided through the sea by a hidden interloper, stashed neatly away inside the giant predator’s skull.
It had taken a decade at least, to finally make the leap to a land dwelling creature; He was pretty unsure of the timing, keeping track of days and nights was tough under the sea and a low priority among the corals and ever shifting sands.
A fanged and horned monkey monster had changed everything, when the beast grabbed him up from a sunny tide-pool he had been exploring in his own form. The hideous, six eyed, scaled and furred beast had been intent on eating the venomous little thing he’d found floating there. A moment later its grotesque body was sprawled on the sand, eyes wide and twitching, while changing ownership.
Digesting all of the victim’s thoughts and memories had been no problem… when he’d been occupying a nearly endless parade of fish, sharks, eels and rays. Their simple, beast brains had held little of interest or consequence. The almost sentient chimp monster had a bloodthirsty and wicked little mind, after a fashion.
The beast’s half formed consciousness and fully developed desire for meat, blood and the sensation of rending flesh had energized some of those more primitive, animal ideas and urges in Gary, sending him on a quest for a less feeble and chaotic body to occupy.
That furry wretch had saved his sanity, as the feeling of the sun on his little body and the taste of air brought his almost forgotten humanity rushing back at last. Snug in the horrid little beast’s body, the animal’s lungs did his breathing, it ate to sustain them both and generally took most of the drudgery out of evolving onto a land based form.
Learning how to walk and move in a more humanoid form took little effort, thanks to those tasty brains; while brachiating and moving among the trees felt almost like flying. If only he could find a living bird that had a big enough skull…
#
Gary took the jar of octopus out onto the patio and set his tentacled, tiny brother down on a garden table under the soft light of myriad alien stars and the flickers of glowbugs, fireflies and other nocturnal illuminators, dancing in the newborn night.
The fool sat down on a bench beside the makeshift aquarium, with an acoustic guitar in his hands. A sweet, slightly ponderous and weighty melody trickled from the strings, as Gary began making music and speaking.
Of the fool he had seemed to be, there was no sign; this fellow was self assured, confident and in control. He gave directions firmly and with absolute confidence they would be followed, but also very gently.
Some leaders’ commands struck like a foeman’s weapon; landing heavily on their followers, shaking the troops’ pride and Will. The man’s tranquil orders alighted softly and instilled a resolve in each of his followers, a light that grew and bloomed, as the dungeon lord watched.
“Dannyl… lead guitar, please. I’m super rusty, so I’ll handle rhythm. Everybody else… you know where this is headed.”
He smiled as his stream of musical notes tightened up into a stirring melody, filled with portent and laden with emotional baggage.
Even after so long beneath the waves, roaming the shores and trying to forget the confusing, painful memories that haunted his dreams, it all came rushing back, with the first few bars of Blue Öyster cult’s ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’.
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This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Do you think he’ll really come?” Larry asked Harry, as they rolled toward the first tempo change.
“Do you think he can help himself? He’s a silly, goofy chunni with near limitless reach and power. He can’t not show up… And unless I miss my guess, he’ll be…”
Harry was cut off mid-slander, by the sudden and inexplicable appearance of a man who could be Gary’s sexier twin, stepping out of the fool’s shadow, as if it were a doorway to another place.
“In a costume.” The young man sighed.
The new Gary was a little taller, a little leaner and supernaturally handsome, with a smile that gleamed bright white, even though his face was largely cast in shadow.
He was dressed all in black, from his shiny leather shoes, to the tall, stovepipe hat perched atop his head. Only a brilliantly white shirt collar and a thin ribbon bow tie of scarlet silk peeking from his snug fitted jacket and vest of black wool relieved his monochrome look. He swept a dashing bow to the gathered company and guests, before beginning to sing along.
The man took up the song, his voice stronger, more perfectly refined and effortless, compared to boring, regular Gary, who faded into the background, leaving the new fellow fronting the family band.
The creepy, frontier funeral director finished his song, driving the crescendo home with a plaintive and heartfelt cry.
Come on baby!
Don’t fear the reaper!
“Whew! That’s a wild ride, bro!” He smiled with those intimidating, oddly sharp, white teeth and embraced the dull and dusty version of himself holding the acoustic guitar at the back of the band.
“Thanks for calling me brother, but your timing…”
“Uncle Ward!” Amy shouted, as she launched herself into his arms. With her face pressed into his chest, the dark and beautiful girl sighed and mumbled up at her uncle.
“That octopus in the jar needs to meet you first. Feel free to be yourself, please.”
The blue clad girl extracted herself and dashed back to her new friends. She smiled at Gandree and Daisybelle with genuine affection and whispered softly in their ears.
“He’ll be mellowed out, once he’s done with the octoputz; after that, you guys should get uncle Ward on easy mode.”
#
The discussion between the silent, jarred octopus and the man in old west undertaker cosplay was not going well at all.
“...Oh, yes indeed, I’m a god! Well, I’m still considered a lesser divine, because my cult is so small. But I’m the local god of Death, Vengeance and Golden Figs…” He smiled expectantly at the jarred, jiggly jerk, who seemed unimpressed.
“Yeah, you had it rough, I get it! I Really do. I got sacrificed right out of the gate; my living heart was cut out of me while I was still being born into this world, by a shitty demon cult…” He complained bitterly at the creature in the jar.
“Their ritual went sideways and blew up, so I spent around six hundred years as a tortured haunt, trapped in my own petrified heart, unable to leave or interact with the physical world, all alone…” He paused there, smiling at the crowd of faces gathered around.
“Until my bro, Gary and his friends helped me out and showed me the way.”
The tiny aquatic creature flashed a few colors and waved its tentacles around some, drawing an outraged scoff from the self proclaimed god.
“Well, I don’t care! You need to respect your elders, or else get tied in a knot.” He grumbled sourly at the eight armed nuisance and turned on boring Gary.
“This is stupid… You still have blue-boy, right? Your gangly wooden corpse puppet? Of course you do, you’re a bloody hoarder! Go get it and dress this chump in a body.”
Gary blushed and nodded at the more handsome version of himself that was busting his chops. “Yes, divine lord!” He groveled rather convincingly at Ward’s feet. “Thy will be done!”
He gave a dramatic, theatrical bow and vanished, still professing his faithfulness and praising the new guy with ecstatic religious zeal and devotion. The whole thing was completely tongue in cheek, a put up, a silly parody of religiosity performed for Ace’s benefit, for some mad reason of his own.
When the gathered people looked back to the compelling and fascinating man who claimed to be a god, standing beside the jarred seafood; a tall, mysterious coffin inexplicably stood nearby.
Covered in arcane glyphs and intricate sigils, the body-box loomed behind the little octopus, sinister and ominous. It had appeared suddenly and without anyone noticing, which was pretty upsetting behavior for a coffin covered with arcane glyphs, inscriptions and sutras.
Ward swept over to the box and carefully opened the lid, revealing a strange, scrawny, wooden humanoid body, suspended on silken cords and lacquered a bright, cheerful blue.
“Amy picked the color, she has great taste!” Becky whispered to Kermal, who nodded in sober agreement.
“He would have painted it black or scary red and yellow flames.” The knight whispered. “Such a chunni… Wait, what’s he saying?”
#
The handsome deity had the blue doll’s arm freed from the coffin, dangling in the mouth of the open jar, entreating the octopus to climb up and onto the doll.
“...I know it’s not a real body! I didn’t make it, I don’t know… I’m a god, not a wizard; ask Gary about all that, it just works!” Ward snapped angrily.
“Do you think I’m going to just kidnap someone so you can eat their brain? No chance! This is your option; put it on.” He grumbled.
“I had to wear this for a while when I first got here and it feels fine, you’ll get used to it.”
He flipped open a small hatch in the thing’s breastplate and indicated the cavity inside. “Go on. Trust me, it works.”
#
Lindsey, Gandree and the four triplets watched in mingled fascination and horror, as the slippery creature wriggled into the snug little compartment and used a tentacle to flip the hatch closed with a slam. Daisybell was smiling excitedly and bouncing on her butt, which was on the dwarf’s lap, as usual.
“Ooo!” She murmured. “A puppet? That is interesting…”
“Papa made that a long time ago, for a situation very like this one.” Amy whispered.
“He put a lost and damaged soul in there so that it could heal and would be able to be born properly, on whatever world it was destined to land on.”
Becky joined the whispered convo, adding in her thoughts. “That puppet is way more than just wooden arms and legs, it’s a soul phylactery that has been touched by some truly powerful magical and demonic forces.” She smiled sweetly at her uncle Ward, who was still arguing with the cephalopod.
“Ward left a dollop of his essence in there, when he became an immortal and was reborn as a god.” Becky smiled sweetly at the gathered friends and nodded with amusement. “Brace for stupidity, we’re in for a tempest of dumb, gale force idiocy.”
“My papa makes the best toys.” Amy sighed, as the blue puppet stirred into life.
#
The confused octopus opened its eyes, even though the faceless wooden mask had none at all. He could see with far greater focus and fidelity than any body he’d yet tried, including some colors and wavelengths most humanoids missed out on.
Hearing started up just a moment later, with excellent quality and two ears. Usually, half of the auditory apparatus would get trashed on his way into the braincase; when possible, he tried to leave it intact… but there were only so many ways into a skull.
Scent and touch booted up in short order, faint tendrils of magic guiding his tentacles to the imitation cerebral nodes and false ganglia arranged in the snug, comfy chest compartment.
“What the hell? This thing really works?” The entity demanded, in a hollow, raspy voice.
“Yes, it does. Speak more slowly and gently until you get a handle on the vocal apparatus, it can be tricky” The boring version of Gary Ward gently murmured. “That was really loud.”
“How?” Ace rasped a little more softly.
“You aren’t the first being we’ve encountered that had to overcome certain deficits in their physicality.” He answered with a mad grin.
“The prior occupants helped me refine and improve this little wonder, so now it’s basically a robot mech that spirits and other beings capable of possessing a foreign body can use to interact with the physical world, without having to murder or possess anyone.” He grinned happily and clapped his hands with glee, as the wooden being slowly stood on its own legs.
“This is a prototype, but it works great so far. I added in full corporeal aquatic respiration and life support as an experiment a few years ago. One of my kids’ childhood playmates is a trans-dimensional jellyfish, she comes to visit once in a while.” He smiled with satisfaction and slipped his guitar out of sight, somehow.
“It should function for you in every way, except for providing nourishment; I haven’t worked out a digestive system that isn’t a stinking mess.”
“You made a magical machine for ghosts to drive around?” Ace asked carefully. “That’s pretty weird.”
“Not ghosts, bro. That would be weird! This thing works for spirits, undead, outsiders and fae… and seagoing octopus necromancers. Ghosts are less interested in physicality than you think.” The madman said with a smile.
“There’s no sense of taste, but the rest of the senses should be functioning already.”
The superlatively handsome version of Gary Ward smiled for a radiant, beaming moment, attracting the gaze of all the gathered people. “Take it for a walk around the garden and really meet the family, while Gary and I finish our work. This is going to be a real eye opener!”
#
Ace or Sarah shook their new wooden head and settled onto a chair beside Gandree and Daisybelle; joining the pair among their new friends with an exhausted sigh.
“This whole thing is absolutely crazy…” The confused being whispered harshly.
“Yup, welcome to our house.” Amy replied sweetly.
“The place is haunted, magical, imaginary and a sacred temple to a whole bunch of gods. Keep your eyes and ears open if you don’t want to miss the show.”
She nodded to where the two men, both as alike as twins, were goofing around with the giant hill-woman in the center of the lawn. “It’s happening, pay close attention if you want to really understand.”
#
“All right! I have a hot date, so let’s shake the foundations of the heavens and earth, so I can get back to the important stuff…” Ward declared with an eager clap of his hands.
“Gary, Shai, you two sit back to back, we’re going to use a tandem Mana cultivation practice, combined with a little divine chicanery… to work a miracle. This ritual is low energy, just relax, let your Mana mingle as you meditate and just follow the bouncing ball.”
As he spoke, his voice slowly became a monotone chant, free of fluctuations in pitch or volume. In a single, endless breath, he began a whispered cadence that carried on and on, inaudible to the listeners outside the circle, aside from a low, buzzing drone and the occasional phrase.
“...Mana is Light and Life in its essential form, guided by Will, Mind and Spirit, anything is possible…”
For long minutes the whispered voice of a god sang a rhymeless song on a world that was unprepared for a divine presence. He extemporised a smooth, mellow word salad, a pseudo mystical sutra to confound the ears and release conscious thought from mortal constraints.
As the two inside the circle fell into his chant and began whispering along, all existence began to thrum and shake, without disturbing the water or wildlife. Non sentients and unliving matter couldn’t perceive the jiggly waves that shimmied and jumbled across the world, disrupting some subtle, delicate balances and breaking reality’s rules, just a little. The sweeping undulations in… everything felt like beating a dusty rug. If the rug were everything, including the rug-beater and the person wielding it. The world’s foundations trembled and shed a few spiritual irregularities that were clogging up the usual processes.
“…Draw deep from within and seek the endless void of the sky, pierce the veil and reveal the sacred Eye of Night to this realm…”
Ward’s voice rose louder, becoming clear and ringing out like a mighty brazen bell, striking the hour of doom.
“Open! Let my gaze fall on this land! Open! Bring death and final rest to my children!”
He fell silent, as the echoes of his voice continued rolling over the sea with a physical presence.
From high above, a sharp, crystalline crack resounded over the island, as a thin fissure of bright, warm, faintly golden, green light appeared, high above the sea.
“Sweet! Now it’s party time!”
#
A few divines became nervous and uncomfortable, when Ward pranced into the scene in Marduk’s little clown-show. That he was a new god, young even by mortal standards was upsetting enough… His status as a former mortal and odd ways, gave even the most accepting and easygoing divines second and third thoughts; especially his ability to visit the mortal world in person. That was weird.
When the performance began, the audience relaxed, since even the mad god of Death and Vengeance couldn’t do much in a little pocket dimension bound to the distant fringes of the prime world…
The sounds and sensations on the screen in Marduk’s little theatre shook the whole house, before gradually spreading out from that lonely pinnacle to cover the entire moon; jiggling and trembling in frequencies that the divines felt from deep within.
Something was coming, something new and strange, but in many ways, oddly familiar as well. High above, constellations, galaxies and nebulae started to shift and swirl, as the globe they stood on began to turn and change its orientation just a few degrees.
Those odd ripples in the substance of the little green moon subsided, while the starry firmament slowly whirled and spun. Eventually, the sky resolved into its familiar constellations, with the addition of a faintly luminous fissure in the void, directly over the Strange High House in the Mist.
“Oh, shit, shit, shit!” Thirp chattered and squeaked, her usually mellow and refined voice harsh and shrill in the ears of the stunned divines in the common room. “Now they’ve done it!”
She climbed up the nearest wall and slipped into the darkest corner she could find, among the rafters and hanging bundles of dried herbs, long forgotten by those who once dwelt there.
“Calm down… It’s fine!” Marduk called into the shadows, where she had taken her original aspect, becoming a thirty pound jumping spider with fine plush brown fur and twinned lightning bolts of pale golden blonde on her abdomen.
“This is not a problem, come down Thirp. I promise it’s ok.”
Slowly she crept back out of the shadows; convinced in large part by Joy, who was standing below her hiding spot, with her arms held open for an embrace. Thirp descended on a dropline slowly, resuming her more humanoid form as she landed in Joy’s welcoming arms.
‘Not all new things are troublesome, sweet Thirp.’ The goddess’ gentle caress spoke silently in her essence, soothing her and bringing a sense of confidence and surety that she couldn’t deny.
‘This one is pretty weird, though.’ Joy silently whispered with a tentative caress of Thirp’s cephalothorax.
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