The vast blind beast trawled on heedlessly. Even as the architect spores took hold upon its desolate back. Even as its spine became the City.

The Ghoul exits the comfortable room to the middle of a vast tilted hallway. To her left, the stone tile ramp lowers bit by bit… until a sudden sheer drop. The walls and ceiling all end at that point too. It's as if the hallway was simply unmade in the middle. She approaches this window to look upon the world outside.

A tangle of stone spires scrape towards a bleak ceiling. Some terminate mere miles into the sky. Others manage to break through the sparse grey cloud layer. Only one, she notes, actually pierces the ceiling far far away. Even at this distance she can make out the tip. It is a sparse spiral staircase that leads into a wide pit carved into the ceiling.

Her eyes trail down the flourishing architecture. There seems to be no pattern to it beyond stability. Two stone bridges sprout from two pillars, as wide as twenty-five Ghouls but close enough together that the ceiling of the lower bridge would hug her scalp. In one place she spots a monolithic box with no entrances. In another, three open doors sit side by side high upon a wall. Only the left door is accessible, an open archway that does not match its counterparts.

For a while, the Ghoul loses herself in the immensity of the world. She sits on the ledge, two hands gripping the wall below her, two hands gripping the ground behind her. From this angle, she thinks, it would be very easy to tumble down and crash against the pit floor. She'd be free to roam then, unshackled from her obligation to the comfortable room, never able to find it again. But she wouldn't survive the fall. She shakes her head to clear morbid thoughts. Something about this world is tugging at her.

"Great view, huh?"

The Ghoul's eyes widen, and she flops her head back to see the Shambler behind her. She didn't hear it coming? It's not right for such a large thing to be so quiet.

Her stomach growls.

The two are doused in a sudden silence after that. The Shambler, expectant, but clearly restraining some kind of smile. The Ghoul, like a deer in headlights.

Eventually, she points a shaky finger at him. "You.", she croaks. "If you did anything to that grub, I won't forgive you. I'll eat you right here."

He lets out a low grumble that turns up into sharp barks. It takes a moment for the Ghoul to recognize the word for it. Laughter. Expression of mirth or cruelty. Worth assuming the latter? Well, maybe not, but if it's mirth, she can apologize afterwards. If it's cruelty, she'll get the jump on him with this.

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Her fingers push her off of the floor, flipping her over the laughing body's shoulder. Wind and instincts roar in her ears. Her lower palms find purchase on the ceiling. The legs bend. Then uncoil. She launches into his back with a thud. The corpse doesn't move an inch, still laughing.

Her teeth find his neck.

[—-------—]

The Ghoul wakes up. Her stomach cries in agony. Despite the deep bruises brushing up against her ribs, she feels no other pain.

The grub has again snuggled against her, and the shrill sound of forging is back. She pulls upright and sees the Shambler. He smashes away against some lump of molten metal. But he pauses, head turning back to her.

"Sorry.", they both say at the same time.

She gestures for him to go first. He grunts.

"Name's Bief. Sorry for the bruises. I moved as lightly as I could. There's a meal waiting for you if you answer my questions. The meal will not be Martha. If you so much as think of eating her during this interrogation, you will not know how you died."

She slowly nods. She'd rather starve than eat her strange host, anyway. Bief begins his questions.

"Do you have any quantities yet?"

She shakes her head. "I need to eat something to quantify Corpse and Skin."

He grunts noncommittally. His expression gives nothing away. "Why didn't you attack me at the start?"

On this, she thinks for a moment. Then the low grumble of self-digestion spurs her into responding with a half-formed answer. "You were smiling, and your voice sounds like a song."

...Bief pauses for a bit longer this time.

"What did you think of the swords?"

"Too beautiful."

Bief raises an eyebrow, then nods as if conceding the point. "Last question. What is your name?"

She doesn't see how this is important to Bief. The hunger pangs try to urge a half-formed answer, but she refuses them. She thinks about herself. An observant namesake, perhaps. She doesn't understand much, but her best decisions come when she obscures her guttural response. When she closes her body's answer, and listens to the mind in her flesh.

"Eyelid.", she says.

Bief nods. He steps to the side, revealing an unmoving Ghoul with its face frozen in a feral snarl. It's tumbled in a heap upon the floor. Only its top half remains.

"Eyelid, look upon this meal. It is your brethren. The unknowing, unthinking, hating Ghoul. Smart ones pop up every now and then, but their goals are always the same - eat better than others. By ignoring your hunger to answer my questions, you prove yourself above a beast. Only time will tell if you are above the common man. Eat."

That last word arrives like a gunshot, and Eyelid lunges for the meal. Her teeth rip into the body. She gnaws against the tough flesh, tearing bites off piece by piece.

When Eyelid returns to herself, it is because her teeth hit a bone. The skeleton laid out before her no longer resembles its former self. She turns to Bief, who has watched her eat, the entire time unblinking.

A screen opens in front of her.

Newborn Quest 1/10. [C] Eat your first meal. REWARD: CORPSE and SKIN will be QUANTIFIED. [https://file.garden/YOKV6KX47HhECOkZ/SANCTUM%20EATER/0002.png]