Months…

Dozens of months had passed as time continued its unrelenting march, dragging the foreigner forward against her will. Her grasp and bearing on time…had broken down even more, regressing away back to standards her own. She lost track and count…as everything felt continuous and indiscrete, flowing by so quickly…as if time were a ravenous river she had been caught in, relentlessly streaming towards an inevitable abyss and fall.

Things were done; she acted; she completed; yet…often times…she did not even remember what things and tasks she did and completed…besides the understanding that she had completed and had done such things and tasks.

Quests…so many quests had been done; quest after quest…that was all she was doing; such was all that was in her mind. With no more of those duplicate collection quests of sea shrubs and glow-crystals, she had branched out and had begun to do other sorts of quests…collection, acquisition, monster bounties, always optimizing her quest load to ensure overlapping areas of operations and objectives in order to ‘maximize’ her presumed…‘efficiency’.

Her tactics had only drifted in ever-more ‘pragmatic’ and ‘utilitarian’ directions…her only rules and regulations being those that which was already governing her engagement principles and conduct protocols...and only if she could help it. Albeit…non-consenting confiscation was not part of any such regulative protocols—a habit which had not only continued, but had also, in fact, worsened…having become even more brazen and less discreet about such doings.

Directives, objectives, mandates, so many such things given to her to execute and fulfill; truly…it was certainly a state of existence…to be provided with such clarity, to be given such explicit concrete goals and defined tasks…in an existence so riddled with uncertainty, ambiguity, and…absurdity. Certainly, such was seemingly better than all that which she had been doing prior as that…‘tavern maid’…or whatever.

Yet…nevertheless, everything still fell so…empty and hallow, even as she had begun to take on more and more quests to do, no longer simply two…rather now three and four…and five; yet…no amount of quests completed filled…whatever it was…that wanted to be filled. Even as that itch was scratched…it only grew worse and worse…becoming ever-more demanding and…itchy.

Even as she scratched away and viciously tore at that growing itch…it still felt…so…hollow. Yet, nevertheless…that was all that could occupy her mind anymore…that was all she could do…over and over…quests, quests after quests…she just…needed to do quests.

Sleeping…sleep was becoming rarer and rarer; she would spend entire nights…out and about, bounty-hunting monsters that she could not even…remember, collecting specific designated bodily parts and pieces from them as ‘proof’; or going about the place around collecting the myriad of things and other different things…targeted for collection.

Yet…even if she wanted to sleep, she would not be able to…anyway; she could not sleep; she could not stand still; she had to be doing something…always.

That shadow deep down within…for so long she had kept it encircled and quarantined…yet now…it was bleeding out…with neither an end nor pause…ever-more as its walls cracked and crumbled, leaking and infesting…like an infecting rot.

Her mind’s own shadow chased her into her sleep and dreams; it chased her even as she remained awake and attentive; even as she forced herself to hardly sleep or relax or be at ease…the shadow still chased her, relentlessly, nevertheless.

She could not linger in standby; she could not remain paused or stationary for even one fresh breathing moment…without intrusive invasions by so many…things and thoughts, piercing her mind and being…like spearheads impaling into her soul…all those things she never wanted to think about…all those things she so simply ignored and ran away from.

Every time she stood still and at ease…the shadow would breach through and bleed out; every time she slept…the shadow would breach and bleed through; the only thing…she could to do…to keep it at bay…to try to run away…were…missions; she needed a mission, she was meant to be given missions…it was her purpose…her only purpose…

She needed quests to do, directives and mandates to execute and complete…over and over…on repeat…yet each quantity, each scale…only became less stimulating…less effective…as she needed more and more and more…for the same withering effect.

Five quests, six quests, seven quests, she needed more and more to have constantly to do…otherwise, she would be doing nothing…and in that nothing…rot would bleed and spread and infest…

Yet…even as she did quest after quest…even as those primitive pseudo-missions preoccupied and ensnared her mind and very essence, that shadow deep within…its dammed walls that had quarantined it so…cracked, crumbled, and leaked…nevertheless.

Indeed…such had gotten to the point that not even fixating on those very directives could keep it at bay; no matter what she did, not matter how hard she so tried to run away…the shadow deep within…only bled out ever-more…as it gave chase…leaving behind a trail of withering decay.

Paying her rent, blending in, hiding and biding her time, whatever overarching goals and rationals she had when she had begun trailing down this path…were lost in the obscurity; she could not think, she could not analyze, for to give any room for even basic cogitation, introspection, and contemplation was to give room that shadow deep within; to use her own aged mind was to think, and to think would be to think, to realize, to remember, to acknowledge everything.

Truly…it felt as if her very mind, her very thoughts, her own inner-voice…were all insurrecting against her…or perhaps…they were simply revealing…what had always been festering…deep down within…for so…so very long.

Yet all she could do…was everything and anything that could numb, inhibit, and silence those insurrectionist thoughts and cogitations…to shut off her very inner-voice and mind. All she could do was everything and anything…that allowed her to float away and detach from reality around…and pretend as though…existence itself…was false and unreal, for it certainly felt as so.

The foreigner laid in her bed…warmth and comfort present…yet unfelt. When was the last time she had laid here? She did not know nor care to know.

She was still wearing her tavern-waitress attire…which had only become even more tattered, dirty, and battered…alien from what it had once been; she could not be bothered to take it off. Her deeply bagged ignited eyes…stared up…at the ceiling above; empty, hollow, yet clearly…experiencing something. Uneased…she was tense, perhaps a bit twitchy, yet still so very…flat and hollow.

It was night; it was a day; she did not know what or when; but time had finally…slowed down for once…in its relentless flowing march; though, by no choice of her own.

Today was some day…apparently…a day of celebration…many such days had occurred before throughout time’s flow…yet this one…was different; she had no choice but to acknowledge it. It…celebrated the God of Labor and Work…thus, all forms of labor and work…were postponed and halted for just one single day…including the Guild hall.

Thus, even though she had just completed all of her selected quests the day before…she was actually…to turn them in this day, collect her reward, and…far more importantly…get new ones to do.

For the first day…in…she did not even know how long , for nothing felt long…she was left without any quest, without any directive, without any defined goal and task needing to be done; left with nothing to do. Thus…all she could do…was lay here, all day…staring at the ceiling, waiting for time to flow and pass. Yet…now…time had decided to pass so slowly in such a twisted and condescending way, as if it were mocking her.

Usually, she could blank her mind and just ‘zone-out’ to let time pass her by…quickly—that was what she…what those like her…always did when in face with time’s mocking flow—yet lately, such skills of hers were…unable to be done; she was trapped in her mind; she was trapped in its shadow; unable to blank; unable to dissociate and detach on her own accord anymore.

She needed a directive, she needed a quest, she needed a directive, she needed a mission; she needed it she needed it she needed it.

Oh…truly, what was taking this mud-infested place so long to rotate? Oh how slow…a single day truly was; it was agonizing, it was tortious; oh how she longed for a stasis chamber.

Maybe she could try sleeping? Sleeping was a form of time-skipping…yet…right…she had been trying and trying, her eyes so exhausted and tired…burning and throbbing yet…every time she closed her eyes…

Right…indeed…she did not want to even close her eyes…not at all…she wanted to do the opposite; she did not want to sleep.

Her finger began to gently, calmly, yet obsessively tap and tap away at her bed…faster and faster…more violently and more frantically. She needed a quest, she needed a quest, her mind was throbbing in numbing fog and pain…her breaths were heavy, thick, and stole more than they ever back gave in turn…as each and every…breath felt suffocating.

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Yet, the shell on the outside was so flat and calm, the only sign of maddening instability being…her quiet and faint breaths of obsession, her rapidly tapping finger, and a few occasional twitches of discomfort.

It really did…feel as though…she was going to explode; that was…what it all felt like…something was coming…something was coming and her head, her mind, her essence…it was all going to explode and burst.

The foreigner sighed…before she calmly, yet swiftly, hopped out of bed.

This…was going nowhere, yet again; she needed something to do; she needed to inhibit and silence all within, and…there was a certain quick and easy way to inhibit her mind, to silence her thoughts, and to just…stop thinking…and float away with such a cold numbing calm and focused silence.

She quickly loaded, prepared, and equipt herself ready…before departing her housing unit, making way out into the cold night beyond…albeit…it was warmer outside despite being night…

Right…seasons…variation…it was no longer…winter and or early spring…huh…right…truly she really did not know…how much time had passed her by; time…truly was…something so easy to lose…when becoming so meaningless to keep.

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Time uncounted had passed; she was…yet again…where she always found herself gravitating to…that same sunny-cavern system of rather…gargantuan proportions. She was…somewhere within it; where…she did not know nor did she care to know; she simply existed and wandered astray.

It was distinctly bright and with glimmery crystalline all around, though; so…she must be rather deep down within it.

She had spent quite the time untold…combatting and engaging, constantly triggering her combat state over and over…to allow that sweet…fix of that cold numbing breeze to flow through and within her rotting veins…letting all those inhibitions and protocols take their hold and effect…as everything she needed to do became so clear…so sensible…and so easy to just do…without any need for any cogitation at all.

Fighting and shooting, ambushing and hunting…butchering and murdering…arachnids, crystalline golems of all creeds and kinds, anything and everything that was hostile and not a denizen. Time flowed and passed as she obsessively hunted and sought out things to combat and kill.

Truly, her combat state’s inhibiting effects were not only enough to suppress the shadow and keep it at bay…but also reliable. Such a ‘combat state’ was a product of both her essence’s own encoded automated directives and her minds own thorough conditioning; thus, not so easy to simply weaken and circumnavigate.

It was a consistent form of ‘escape’…as if injecting some primitive narcotic into her own blood…though, one contingent on being in a combat state, and thus being in active combat.

Indeed…during the in-betweens, during those gaps free from any fight and combat…the rot festering deep within her mind’s shadow…would always resume its bleeding onslaught and unwavering maelstrom.

Thus…she needed to simply…always be in combat, always be fighting something…lest she be given room to think and comprehend. Indeed…such always felt the most familiar…the most nostalgic…the most…

Glow-golems…ah, that was what she was now engaging…right.

Pop, pop, she fired and fired…they were running away from her…not even bothering with fighting…right…maybe her aura…or maybe her presence was simply…that malevolent. Or…no wait…right…she had been leaving behind…a trail of death…the whole way down…

Her revolving-repeater was riddled with so much residue and soot…it was so sluggish to fire and use…the risk of it chain-firing was prominent, though she could not possibly care any less.

She chased them down…firing with their backs turned, using all ten shots before switching to her equally soot-riddled revolver, lance-dashing up close with it in hand.

Yet the next instance she could comprehend…she was suddenly cut in her leg, thigh, and arm…quite badly too, her radiant cyan-infested blood bleeding out…though the stinging pain remained mute…even if felt; such should heal within one or two…eventuallies.

Oh right, and all of the glow-golems had been dispatched…but such was a simple inevitably not even worth mentioning…or even remembering. Truly, there was no running away from the inevitable; they should not have even bothered.

She had six shots yet…clearly more than that were dead…oh, right…in her hand was…right…she had used their own weapons…against them…huh…she did not even know how to use…such, however; no wonder…her hands were so bruised and blooded.

She dropped the crystalline…whatever weapon…in hand, and opened her revolver’s soot-infested cylinder…attempting to reload it…only to realize…ah…she was completely out; she had used all of her ammunitions…bullets and handmortar shells alike…and she had brought…quite a plenty too; no wonder…she seemed much lighter on feet.

She then noticed…quickly, however…movement. A glow-golem, still alive…oh…so they were not all dead…then?

Ah…she noticed…she had missed its spine by a bit…though…she was aiming for the heart…which she had also…missed by a bit; though, she seemed to have had beaten it quite so…afterwards.

It was crawling on the ground…its arms stretching as it grabbed the ground, pulling its battered figure forward…attempting to flee away.

Ah…so they could feel fear; they could feel…desperation. It was scared of her, terrified of her…and it showed.

Interesting.

So rare it felt…for her to be in this position; usually…it felt like it was always the inverse, even if perhaps untrue; yet now…it felt like for once…she could be the tormenter and not the tormented. Even though…this thing…had not really done much at all…something deep down inside her…still wanted to see it bleed.

She slowly approached the glow-golem as it crawled and tried to escape.

She picked up a decaying crystalline sword from the ground…and so casually bashed the hard blade…into its leg, piercing through and shattering both leg and sword in kind…its goopy crystalline fluids spewing out in such bloodied mass.

It immediately lurched and staggered; yet with a new decaying crystalline sword, she shatter-sliced its other leg in kind, though preserving the blade, before kicking with such force that it rolled over; its back now firmly against the ground…she bashed her full boot right into its torso…and remained firmly…lodged within its radiant goop-filled being.

She stared it down with zero affect to be found. Its ignited veins and nerves…its strange glowing and pulsating heart…all ignited, pulsed, and throbbed…as if the thing were panicking, dreading…terrified and scared.

Yet, it was a featureless mannequin of essence-made crystal; it had no face; it had no voice; it had nothing but blankness and hollow emptiness; truly…no wonder the locals could butcher such inhuman things so easily, in spite of their apparent intelligence and seeming affect.

Now then…she peered with a tilted head…what should she do with it? She could do…anything; it was at her mercy…she was the one in absolute control…she had all the power over its fate…

Hmm…her glaring eyes inspected…it clearly had a central nervous system…a sort of exotified spine and brain along with all sorts of ‘radiant’ peripheral nerves…and it was reacting with panic…anxiety and fear…dread and…pain…

Ah…so they could feel…such emotions and things. Yet…if so…then…could it feel physical pain? Was it…feeling…her boot bashed within its stomach? Could it feel…its missing legs and battered whole?

Such would make sense…for the experience of emotional pain and suffering…such as fear and dread…was interconnected with the experience of physical pain and suffering; to have the former…necessitated the presence of the latter.

Though, of course, every hypothesis always required…experimental verification.

Crystalline sword still gripped tightly in hand…she readied it for an amateurish strike…many, in fact. She was going to slowly…cut and tear at it until it was nothing…but an exposed exotified spine and despoiled brain…to see what rotting abomination was hiding behind this veil…to see if it…twitches and squirms and begs…and then maybe…just bash her boot into its brain…just to see if it would…pop.

Her hand made way to strike and slice away…as the golem recoiled and retracted in apparent terror…

Yet suddenly…flash.

The crystalline blade halted…right in place…hovering and lingering with no strike.

Flash after flash…familiar things, familiar sights, familiar events…flashed and invaded into her mind and eyes…as if the past and present had abruptly merged into one incohesive whole. She froze completely in a still…her eyes widening…as they looked down…staring…

Quivering, the crystalline golem’s arms were extended out and over its head…as if it were anticipating with terror and dread…its glowing-heart and ignited veins of nerves…throbbed and pulsated brightly and frantically as if its very essence were trembling before her very eyes.

This was not the first time…she recalled…that she had seen such a sight…that she had seen something so terrified and filled with such dread in her presence. This familiar terror and despair of being tormented and toyed with…of being turned into the play-thing of a rotting being who had long fallen astray…

Such she had seen…time and time again…she had been…the victim…the perpetrator…the bystander…

Right…she hated such sights…she hated things to be in such a state…she hated…causing things to be in such a state…right…she had to…remind herself…she hated seeing these sights…she despised these affairs utterly…yet…ah…here she was…yet again…

The foreigner stared, frozen in place…as so many strange…strange…feelings flooded into her mind and being…as such an…alien yet familiar…urge filled her eyes…yet…they remained cold and dry…without affect. Indeed, its crystalline glimmer was reflective, her staring eyes could see her own self reflected in this golem…in a literal sense, never mind the metaphor.

Yet…no doubt, much like her, this atrocity’s very existence…was…already…one of torment; a nightmare without any end to be found…besides, say, one.

She immediately lunged the blade straight into its glowing crystalline heart, piercing through as the heart popped and poofed…in a snow-dusty exotic burst of sparkly wisps. The radiant veins and ignited glimmer dimmed and dimmed…as all its radiance…withered in kind…until its essence…detached and became…a decaying echo…hopefully one with more peace…than the death…she had so initially intended.

She stepped her glow-goop soaked boot out of its torso…tossing the decaying crystalline sword off to the ground…to wither along with those lingering echoes, before she simply began to make way…pretending as though…she had not been unsettled…by her own momentary actions; pretending as though…she had not just grossly violated…her own regulations and protocols…for the nth time…in her long-long life.

She focused around…now…it was time to find her way out…of this sunny-cave.

Time passed and flowed onwards…as hours passed her by as if minutes streaming through time…before she eventually found herself…stumbling all the way out…and back into the world beyond…only to see…that it was still dark as night…despite all that time.

Huh…odd…the foreigner, for once, looked up to the night-sky up high…eyeing the atmosphered moon specifically; she could immediately tell from its position…that it was an…entirely…different night—not the one…she last remembered.

Ah…so she had spent…more than an entire day…down there…perhaps…even multiple days, she realized; though…she did not know nor could she tell…for it did not feel as though much time had passed…at all…

She stood there…and in a blink…the moon was now suddenly farther along in its trail across the sky…how long…had she even been standing here? She did not know…nor did she even care to know. She simply, and finally, began to make way back to Coastfield…for she had…quests needing to be turned in…and new ones to finally retrieve.

You are spinning in circles, little violet