Lars was laying in the same place in the same house that he'd first drank the Haverdash wine. Only now, he was chained to the desk. The Haverdash had come through the house and replaced the cylinders of glass, cleaned up the floor, and added an assortment of tools that looked alien to him.
By the sound of it, he was the last one in the town alive. They had "not spared anyone for offerings", because "This whole village is one offering, the first fruits of the war." The Haverdash wanted to kill him too, they still wanted to, but all but a few of them feared that Haverdash that had first found him.
He was unlike the other Haverdash. They were an excited people, drinking their wine ceaselessly, and going about every work with hyperactive passion. They were also diligent, always working and always talking about doing things for "the sake of Haverdash", or "The glory of Haverdash." The one who had first found him, however, was calm. He wouldn't fidget, wouldn't shout, walked at a relaxed pace, and didn't change his behavior the slightest however much wine he'd drank.
He was also the only one who didn't mind touching Lars. Before they'd chained him up, each time before they'd forcefully moved him, they would put on gloves. The phrase most often repeated doing this was "pathetic human." Their aversion to touching him seemed to come from considering him below them, just as a king wouldn't be expected to touch a peasant even if the peasant had just showered.The one who found him hadn't hesitated in the least to touch him when looking him over. He looked in his mouth as you would with a horse, looked closely at his eyes, and checked his reflexes by tapping his knee (his knee didn't move).
Lars wished someone would try to kill him, if only so that he could feel something. When the effects of the Haverdash wine were wearing off he was looking forward to feeling normal again, not being afraid or in pain, and perhaps even eating something sweet. Now, in such stark contrast to the extreme feelings he had from the wine, normal felt like nothing. It was like he had adapted to be tolerant to all feelings and emotion, and needed greater doses to appreciate them as he once had.
Earlier he had tried to feel something by pinching himself, or picking away too much skin, and he even tried to break his fingers. As if knowing exactly how he would feel, the Haverdash who found him had ordered for thick rubber gloves to be put on him, and so any form of self harm he tried was impossible. He couldn't even grip things. From where he was chained in the room, and because of how short the chain was, he couldn't do anything except bash his head against the wall. Unfortunately that isn't good for anything but a concussion, so there was nothing he could do but sit there.
The door opened, and the Haverdash who found him stepped into the house. "Good morning. Did you know it was morning?"
Lars wasn't motivated to respond.
He slid some grimy gloves off his hands and held one out for someone behind him to give him something. He walked over to Lars and crouched down. Other Haverdash came in behind him and started dumping a highly viscous liquid onto one of the glass cylinders. He grabbed Lars by the jaw and forced his mouth open, then took what was in his other hand and placed it on Lars's tongue. Then he closed his mouth.
Lars impassionately let it sit for a moment, but then his eyes widened. It was a pepper, a very, hot, pepper. His mouth turned to fire. He tried to spit it out, but the Haverdash slapped his hand over Lars's mouth. "Chew it and swallow."
His hand was weirdly hot, and sticky to the touch. A Haverdash behind him sneered in disgust at how he'd touched the human. Lars tried to turn and spit it again, but the Haverdash kept his head firmly in place. He started chewing as quickly as he could. He couldn't open his mouth wide enough to chew well because of the Haverdash's hand, so he had to make many tiny bites and grind down the pepper. When he had finally swallowed, the Haverdash took his hand off his mouth. Lars gasped for air, breathing heavily to cool off his mouth.
The Haverdash took a napkin from a pocket and wiped the pepper smear and saliva off of his hand. "It's time we got acquainted." He held his hand out, "I'm Moxey. And your name is?"
Through hyperventilations he answered, “Lars.”
“Lars. Isn’t it nice to feel again?”
Lars hiccupped, “It really hurts!”
Moxey pulled out a bottle of Haverdash wine, “And that’s bad?”
Lars didn’t know how to answer.
“Would you rather you felt nothing again? When the heat fades, should I leave you to that?”
After long seconds of silence, Lars answered quietly, “No.”
Moxey took a drink of wine. “And now you are beginning to understand. But only just beginning.” The grabbed his iron rod and punched it through the lock attaching Lars to the chain. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Lars was confused about why he was being set free, so Moxey yanked him to his feet. In a harsh voice he whispered, “Lars, you realize I know what it means to feel nothing, and I hate it, and the power of strong feelings is dear and glorious to me?” Lars was unsure if he should answer, not knowing what would happen if he guessed wrong. “Answer me!” Moxey growled.
Lars whimpered, “Yes.”
“Then why did you think I wanted to be kept waiting?” Moxey let go of Lars. He spoke normally, “Next time do as I say right when I say it. You understand?”
Lars nodded vigorously, “Yes.”
Moxey walked outside, “Come on Lars. I have much to tell you.”
The eyes of the working Haverdash loomed over Lars as he followed Moxey outside. He caught up to Moxey, “You aren’t concerned that I’m going to run away?”
“Not at all.” Moxey leaned against King Willow. “What would you gain from that? You’d be resigned to feeling the small, unsatisfactory feelings that humans live their lives feeling. We are beyond that now.”
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“I could always eat a lot of peppers, right?”
Moxey smiled coyly, “It might help. Make no mistake though, our peppers aren’t like human peppers. Our food isn’t like human food, and our drink isn’t like human food. When we can help it, our air isn’t like human air. What you ate was originally bred by Haverdash centuries ago as a torture device. Over generations our tolerance as a people increased; now we find the hemotoxin within them, quite zesty.”
“Hemo-?”
“Viper venom, Lars. That’s a hemotoxin.” Lars recoiled when he heard that. “Shocking, yes. You survived viper venom, and already feel quite comfortable. You’re only surprised because you don’t realize what you drank. Haverdash wine is common, for the Haverdash, but a human would never survive drinking it.”
He crouched down to meet Lars’s eye level, “A human would *never*, survive drinking it. The only answer for how you did must be unfathomable willpower. You survived the wine of the Haverdash, and gained a level of tolerance similar to ours more rapidly than I thought was possible.”
Lars actually felt a little pleased with himself, "So I'm the only human to survive Haverdash wine."
"I wouldn't put it that way, no. You, once a human, were able to forcefully change for the sake of survival, and so were able to survive our wine."
"So I'm not human? Are you saying I'm a Haverdash now?"
Moxey put his hands on Lars's shoulders, "No, Lars. You're something new. You're not quite human, and not yet Haverdash. But, you will be, Lars. You will be a wonderful Haverdash, and nothing is more desired among the Haverdash than willpower."
*
Lars and Moxey walked away from town, where all kinds of building and digging projects were being made. They were heading to a formation of hills North of the village, but on the way Lars lost his motivation to do anything. The intense feelings from the hemotoxic pepper had totally worn off, and he could only feel weak sensations that amounted to nothing. He sat on the ground with a faded look in his eyes, not particularly responsive to Moxey waving his hand in his face.
Moxey pulled out his bottle of wine, "Worn off already, has it? Here you go. This is what you really need."
Lars raised his arm, but stopped before grabbing the bottle. "Isn't there anything with… nice feelings?"
Moxey nodded, "Everything, Lars. Get this idea of 'bad feelings' out of your head. Fear, anger, pain, these are no less precious than joy, sweetness, or peace. You need to learn how to appreciate them."
Lars took the bottle, braced himself with a deep breath, and drank.
"Isn't it grand, Lars? Revel in the feelings it gives you, but do not be ruled by them. Exercise your willpower, dominate-"
Lars flung his head into the dirt and began to scream.
Moxey sat back, "Not ready for that then. I'll wait."
*
An hour later, Lars was finally responsive. Moxey picked him up to sit him upright. "There we are. That was a lot better than the first time. It took you almost a full day to stop convulsing, but this was no more than an hour. That just shows how much more willpower you have now."
Lars's lips were still trembling, and his eyes darted around at hallucinations, but he responded, "It… gives me more willpower?"
"It makes you improve your own willpower. If you run you'll become faster, if you live with chronic pain you'll learn to tolerate more pain. If you are forced to push through with your willpower, your willpower will improve. Think back to what I told you, you have a spectacular amount of willpower, admirable, enviable, but then why is it that you handle wine so much worse than I do?"
"I haven't built up a tolerance."
"It's not an immunity, like your body develops to diseases and venoms. Though, you might not understand that comparison. It's tolerance through willpower! Your willpower is like talent! It is unrefined, you've never had to truly exercise it, but now you are! Your improvement will be swift. You will drink wine like water before too long, but you must learn to enjoy intense feelings, ruling over them while you do. Practice that now by getting up and operating at normal capacity while the feelings are still rushing over you."
Moxey turned and walked away. He looked back after he's gone several paces, "Follow, Lars."
Lars struggled to his feet like a newborn fawn. He could barely perceive the world around him, everything was shifting and false images were appearing and disappearing as he hallucinated. Once he started walking he was able to get a streak of steps together, but it wasn't easy. Moxey led him to the base of a hill and started inspecting the outside.
He took a large gulp of wine and stayed motionless as he looked at the hill, then proclaimed, "Aha!" He jammed his fingers into the hill and pulled, throwing open a doorway that had been totally concealed before. "I told you we like to control the air when we can. We need a controlled environment for that, so we have a propensity for digging. Inside." Moxey plunged into the darkness, leaving Lars leaning against the doorway.
"How, how did you find the doorway? And, how am I supposed to see in there?
Moxey called back, "The answers are the same, trust your hallucinations, Lars."
"Trust them?" Lars exclaimed, "I keep hallucinating monsters!"
"Don't trust what they say, trust that they're there!"
“Trust the monsters are there?” Lars plunged into the darkness. His hallucinations were on every side of him, but he couldn’t bring himself to approach them. How was he supposed to trust them? He avoided them, walking wherever there was a gap. A moment later, he bumped into Moxey.
“Well done.”
“But, I didn’t trust them!”
Moxey rustled Lars’s hair, “Of course you did. Just as you didn’t want to walk into a wall, and proceeded down the corridor, you didn’t want to walk into the monsters, and proceeded down the open space. That’s not to say that the monsters were in the exact positions of the walls, but look, you got to where you needed to go. So when I tell you to trust your hallucinations in the future, understand, you’re supposed to treat them like they are real. In a sense, they are.”
Lars nodded, only realizing afterwards that Moxey probably couldn’t see him, “I do understand.”
Moxey stepped away. "Good." He sighed. "I had hoped, naively, that this place would be somewhat like it had been. I've never been here before, of course, but across the sea we continued to make them in this likeness. It's, a temple of sorts. The air is supposed to be rich with hallucinogenic gas. There would be luminescent lights, organic and otherwise, illuminating this space. That would allow us to perceive the altars. Here, my hand is on one now, come here."
Through following Moxey's voice and avoiding his hallucinations he found his way to the altar, which appeared to be a rising sun to him. He put his hand on it, finding it extremely cold to the touch.
Moxey led his arm to the corners, "Feel the hooks." Each corner had five inch hooks coming off of them, still sharp. Lars accidentally pricked himself and jerked his hand back. Moxey admonished him, "Don't be so averse to pain. That's what they're there for."
Lars asked him, "Who is it a temple to? Nishir?"
"No one so pitiful." Moxey answered. "Our temples are to Haverdash."
Lars was confused, "To yourselves?"
"We don't worship each other, if that's what you mean. We are inexorably linked, as a people, to Haverdash, who finds glory when we find glory, and in Haverdash is found the apex of willpower."
Moxey's hand ran into something as it ran over the altar, "Ah, hold this." He put in Lars's hand.
"It's a metal rod, like you have at your waist."
"It's an object of worship, often to be found at altars. It's also a suitable weapon, at least I find it so. You should probably use something more intentionally designed for war."
"You're going to give me a weapon? You don't think I'd take it and run?"
Moxey took the metal rod back and placed it on the altar. He put his hand on Lars's back and started leading him out from under the hill. "Absolutely not. You're soon to be Haverdash. You understand the desire for strong feelings, so you could never go back to that human world, so far from proper wine."
They stepped outside into the sun. Lars shielded his eyes from the sudden, bright light, but Moxey looked straight into the sun, though his eyes did not contract until he took a swig of wine. "I think a sword would fit you best, like my friend Trots."