Sam swallowed hard, forcing down the immense urge to vomit as he and Yoko sloshed through the blood pool at the centre of the cave. It was his first time in here and the stench, a rancid odour of faeces, blood, bile and other unfortunate fluids and solids that ought to remain within an animal’s body perforated the air.
He dared not look down where he stepped, everything was soft, squishy and likely to be either an organ or a pile of shit. Light and air fell in from cracks in the cave ceiling and though the entrance was wide open neither facts did anything to change the sense of stagnation in it.
“How can you stand this?” he said once he trusted his throat and gut enough to open his mouth.
Yoko strolled through the mess rather unfazed, her eyes on the lookout for anything remotely useful they could salvage while her clones busied themselves herding the freed animals out of their cages and back into the wild.
The wolves barked at her approach, though their whimpers were louder when she shushed them with a hiss, “I am a doctor or at least I used to be before you and the DSF trapped me here. Let me tell you, humans are a lot messier than this and the kinds of smells.”
She shook her head and Sam believed her, “Still, we need to do something about our clothes, I’ve been in this pair for days and now…I can’t stand another second in them.”
He sighed at the blood the hem of his trousers lapped up, the dirt and blood his shirt was stained with from battle and other unfortunate trials world hopping afflicted.
Yoko snorted, “I bet you wish you had a pair of baggy jeans right about now.” She danced a silly dance, shaking her legs so the air in the jeans made it warble.
Sam rolled his eyes at her but was quietly envious. He had been at her side long enough to notice her clothes rarely stayed dirty. With her Regalia she could shift to whichever of her clones had the cleaner set on and dismiss the rest.
“Maybe we should have asked for more than a map and a meal.” Sam mused about Zacchaeus and his tribe. Some of the folk they’d seen weren’t as poorly dressed as Yakubu was, Zacchaeus himself being a prime example.
“I doubt he would have been so generous, he seemed like he wanted to keep everything he had the way it was. I’d say the fact that he didn’t straight up kill us was mercy enough from a man like that.”
Approaching the butcher table where the Bone Ogre’s unfinished bear laid, Sam raised a brow at Yoko while examining the tools, “You weren’t so talkative before.”
She shrugged and quickly stepped back as a pair of rabbits dashed out of their cage to freedom, “I’d speaking now and I say we’ve done enough good by him and his weird tribe of mole people.”
Releasing the animals back into the forest would help Zacchaeus’ tribe survive off the forest better than they were, incidents like what happened with Yakubu and his partner might still occur but rather than dying over a mushroom that tastes like meat they would die over the real thing.
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Is that a…pen? Underneath the gore of fleeced bear skin Sam spotted a ballpoint pen. He lifted the skin away and found there was a notebook with a written list of items— 2lb goat, 3lb chicken, 2lb rabbit…
“I mean, its obvious Zacchaeus is strong and sure, maybe Domus and the Stewards are stronger but does that mean you give up meat? He’s been down there for decades, living off potatoes and mushrooms with a ton of people that could definitely use the protein. I just don-”
“Yoko, come over here.” Sam said, interrupting her rant before it could get going.
She left her clones to work on smashing the rest of the cages open and hopped down to meet him at the Ogre’s work centre. “A notebook?”
“Can Ogre’s read and write? Or has someone been coming in with instructions?”
Yoko bit her lip, “Obviously the latter…but then Zacchaeus did say Domus and the Stewards could control Belua, maybe they’re very good at it, like a surgeon with forceps.”
“That would imply one of the Stewards spent their time manipulating Belua to hunt and butcher,” Sam shook his head, not sure what to make of anything in the cave. It was strange from the beginning with Ogre’s butchering animals in such a humanlike manner.
“I found another room!” A clone yelled out ahead of them. Sam tucked the note and pen away, there was little else other than meat orders but the paper would make good kindling.
He followed Yoko to look and left the butchery table behind. The cave was circularly rounded and the curved walls were mostly covered by cages. Yoko’s clone stood in front of a wall with the cages tossed aside now that the animals were free. The wall in question was heavy and camouflaged against the cave’s natural colours yet a simply touching its cold, smooth surface made it obviously metal.
It groaned and grinded against the ground as Sam and two Yokos pushed it open. A draft of air whooshed past once it was sufficient, there was no room but they were steps leading down into the darkness the wind came up from.
“I’m not going down there.” Sam said, immediately folding his arms. “Send a clone, actually, a clone found it soo…?”
Yoko wasn’t fazed but her clone groaned as she stepped in, “It’s dark. Could I at least get a lighter?”
Neither of them answered the clone. Her voice, moans and groans faded the farther in she went though she kept talking. “You do talk a lot or is that just clones?”
She blushed, “Shut it. I get nervous when I can’t see my own foot.”
“Fair.”
The clone’s voice quickly faded in the distance, though once it did, the Yoko beside him lost her Regalia. Sam waited, knowing she would return in a couple of minutes or seconds depending on what waited on the other end of those stairs.
In the meantime, Sam inspected the cave, there was little else to explore and Yoko’s clones had done a great job smashing the cages open. Only three cages were still closed— the pair of wolves, the last bear and the chicken coop.
The wolves and bear because Yoko was reasonable frightened they’d maul her and the chickens because they had to have something for dinner. It was a day passing now since they’d been in this world and Sam was not looking forward to what else twelve more days would force him to do.
He summoned his Regalia and stared at the empty slot that had yet to be filled with an ability. They’d decided to wait a bit until things were clearer and they were less haggard to choose who would wield Aether Detection. Sam had half a mind to just pick it himself and get it over with, a new ability was a new ability after all. The benefits would only be good.
“Sam!” Yoko called out at last, “You have to come up and see this, also, bring the chickens.”
Sam raised a brow at her wording, “Did you say come up?”
She smirked, “You’ll see.”