Chapter 63 - The Damned Church of the Damned
“Stop! In the name of the Church!” I barely had time to register my surroundings, let alone my new Soul Tinker ability before I was seized roughly by two burly guards. I tried to yank my hands away, but I couldn’t so much as budge them. A woman in a flowing white dress stood before me, her gaze flicking between me and Garnush.
“What the hell, lady?” I asked, wincing at the pain flowing from the tips of my fingers to my breast bone. Her eyes glowed golden and the sneer on her face intensified.
“Have you been in contact with heretical Tower gods?”
“What?”
“ANSWER THE QUESTION OR DIE!” Her voice boomed out, shaking even the cobblestone underfoot. Her voice was so loud, even my eyes hurt, rattling in their sockets.
“I don’t think so.” My voice felt weak compared to hers. Her eyes shifted from golden to blood red in an instant, and I knew I fucked up.
“LIES! Your gods have been outlawed, chained, restrained. The Council is the only rightful ruler of the Tower, and Their will is law.”
“I wasn’t aware of-”
“Being ignorant is no excuse. You have the taint of a heretical god on you, so you must perish. We have been watching, and we have been waiting. Any who enter the civilised floors will be scanned. Those that are judged to be guilty shall rot, unburied, in the sewers where trash belongs.”
“But-”
“May your corpse feed the rats, you filth!”
A golden sceptre materialised in the clergywoman’s right hand. All of the sun’s rays seemed to gradually condense on its tip. As they did, I couldn’t help but to notice how familiar Floor 5 seemed. My arms were wrenched so tightly to each side of me that I could hardly move my head, but the glimpse I got filled me with… emotions.
Jealousy. The square we were in was so bright, so clean. Fountains burbled happily, filled with water so clean that I knew it had to be borderline sweet and almost freezingly cold. That perfect mix to rehydrate on a warm day.
Envy. Children dressed in spotless clothing clutched to their parents, ice cream in hand. An old man sat on a bench, a bag of seeds in hand, hoping to feed birds, no doubt as per usual. Shop bells tinkled as customers entered and exited, purses on their hips for everyone to see. And not a weapon in sight, except for in the clergywoman’s hand, of course.
Rage. It was the same square. We were in the exact same square in the exact same city I grew up in. We were in what the Slums would have looked like with sunshine, a sprinkle of joy and a few dashes of hope. We were in what the Slums could have been. Should have been. These people lived in luxury with not a care in the world. Even as the sceptre charged itself with mana, most only shot a curious glance and kept prancing or shopping or splashing in the fountains. It wasn’t fair. Why did Floor 5 get to be peaceful and warm and… peaceful? GAH! It wasn’t fair at all.
Then, it hit me. Not a sudden realisation. Not an idea or an epiphany or a revelation. Nope. A condensed beam of pure, hot, divine light pierced my chest. I’d like to say that it didn’t hurt at all, that it was over too quickly. Yeah right. It hurt like a son of a bitch and a half. It was like body slamming a small sun, or cramming a campfire down my throat. The world turned white for a moment, just for it to fade to the darkest of blacks. An eternal, unending darkness.
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“You, there!” Dame Clarissa shifted to face the hooded gnoll. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. It was dirty. Filthy, even. And it wore the ears of its victims as decorations, suspended from its very own ears.
“Have you been in contact with heretical Tower gods?” She clenched her fist around her heavenly sceptre, ready to smite the wicked thing. Of course it would lie, then it would fall. Finally, she was making progress. Finally, she would weed out the vermin.
“Garnush has not been in contact with gods at all.” Truth. Dame Clarissa grit her teeth.
“I do not want to know if Garnush has or has not been in contact with gods. I want to know if YOU have.” The tricky bastard thought it could pull one over on her. She was imperially trained for half a decade. The weasel blinked dumbly at her.
“Garnush is Garnush.” Truth.
“That is not how this works, you filthy gnoll! You must answer like this: I have not been in contact with heretical or imposter gods.” False. Colour drained from her face as her eyes started to glow red. With an effort of will, she wrestled control of her skill, forcing her eyes to shift back to gold. Uncaring or not knowing better, the gnoll parroted her sentence.
“I have not been in contact with heretical or impostor gods.” Truth.
Dame Clarissa barely registered the truth of the statement, her eyes flicking between Rog, Tog, Bled and Shrip. Her heavenly sceptre disappeared in a puff of angel dust. The two first piles of muscle were completely focused on restraining the gnoll. The other two were loading a cart with the body of the first heretic to be cleansed on Floor 5. Good. They didn’t catch that slip up.
“Tch!” She tisked. “Let it go. And don’t forget to give it the customary complimentary stay at the Praying Mantis and extra muffin coupons. We aren’t savages, after all.”
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I woke up. Hm… That was a surprise. I was laying on soft grass, a gentle breeze caressing my cheeks. I slowly opened my eyes, afraid of what I might see. A beautiful blue sky greeted me, small clouds lazily ambling by. I blinked. Was this… the afterlife? A small snort drew my attention. I whipped my head to the side and stared right into Garnush’s cockily grinning face.
“I… What?” I was having trouble processing not being dead. There wasn’t any chance that I had survived. Wait…
“Garnush has interdependence! Garnush not beholder to Boss.” I… The look the gnoll gave me was so gods damned smug that I almost reached over and punched him. But… I had been resurrected?
Not waiting for my confusion to pass, Garnush reached out a clawed finger and ripped a purple gash into the fabric of the universe. What he actually did, I wasn’t sure, but that’s damn well what it looked like. He reached inside and withdrew Pyro’s corpse. I swallowed hard. The top half of his body had been all but blown off. With the excitement of a small child preparing a plate of waffles at a table full of toppings, Garnush placed Pyro’s body down, fiddled with the placement of his arms, then commenced his resurrection, channelling mana into his spell. It took far, far longer than the last time, and when Pyro stirred, Garnush dropped to the floor in exhaustion. Apparently, the reknitting of most of Pyro’s chest (which was now pink and bald) had taken far more mana than simply resurrecting an intact corpse.
“Holy tits on a bean pole, she was cute,” Pyro said through a coughing fit.
“Excuse you?” I asked, incredulous. “You just got your chest blown open and that’s your first thought?”
“I mean, it’s not every day you see a chick that hot. An’, well, seems like I do, actually, die errday. So…” Pyro trailed off, shrugging awkwardly, still seated on the lush grass next to me.
“Pyro… You’re a dumbass,” I sighed.
“It’s a lot more fun than bein’... a… not-dumbass,” he replied, wiggling his eyebrows.
Rolling my eyes, I looked over at Garnush. “Where are the others? Are they… Did they make it?” I felt like I should have been panicking more. Is this shock? Yeah, I think I’m conveniently in shock.
“Garnush is corpse lord now!” He announced, puffing his chest. “Garnush got a class for climbing Tower. Garnush can hold corpses now in extrashmishmentional space. Keeps them, umm… Fresh? Garnush passed the test, so Garnush followed Boss’s body in a cart to the sewers, then picked up Boss and friends. Squiggles the tentacle went home after Squiggles saw Boss was OK. He didn’t like the mean lady’s questions so he went home.”
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I sat in silence, shaking my head at the entire situation, until Garnush had resurrected Thwain.
“Absolutely fucking not,” Thwain said, cutting Pyro off. “You saw how fast we got grabbed. If we go back up to Floor 5, they’re gonna ask the same damn questions and we’ll end up in the same spot. Worse, probably, since they’ll recognize us and the gnoll.”
“We could put the smack down on ‘em, though! Can’t catch us out twice.”
“They absolutely fucking can, you moron! No,” Thwain cut his hand down decisively. “I’m going back to Floor One to warn everyone. Not everyone’s gonna have a…” He glanced at Garnush, “a second chance.”
“Ahem..” I raised a finger, but got ignored.
“An’ what?” Pyro shot to his feet. “Live on the first four floors ‘til the Tower shuts down or explodes or gets eaten or whatever the fuck is goin’ on?” He got right up in Thwain’s face, his cheeks puffing red. “We’re pissin’ away an opportunity, man.”
“Guys?” I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. The Church had somehow manoeuvred itself into a position of power on the fifth floor AND had a method of figuring out that there were some god-related shenanigans on the lower floors AND had set up an ambush. It wasn’t hard to believe that a believer from the Slums had sent word up the chain of command, but it was hard to believe that they were allowed to set themselves up at the entry portal and merc anyone they didn’t like.
Thwain ground his teeth. “I’m not saying I’m done. I’m saying we save everyone else first,” he swung his arm at the descension portal, “THEN we hit back.” There was a heavy pause as the two stared daggers at each other.
“What if we did what Slorp did?” I suggested. He had told us about other Towers and we had all seen the Festival Shop’s entries for different inter-Tower travel options. Raids, temporary visas, permanent transfers, diplomatic envoys, tourism passes… We had a few options, though only a few good ones.
Blink blink.
“Climb a few floors then fuck off?” Pyro asked.
“Get water powers?” Thwain guessed.
“Jump Towers.”
Blank stares.
“We’re on, what?” I looked around us to the peaceful meadow, the swaying grass and the burbling streams. “Floor 4? Boss gives 400 shop points. We’re in an instance, so nobody else can interrupt our farming. Only reason we’re here is because of Garnush.”
Pyro and Thwain glanced between each other and me, their eyes wide.
“We farm the floor for points, then hop to another Tower for a bit. Slorp got a class from ours, so we should be able to get a class or an equivalent whatever from another Tower. Then, we come back stronger and steam roll through Floor Five’s ambush.”
“Only if it’s cats,” Pyro said at the same time Thwain said “Floor One first.”
We ended up compromising. Thwain left for Floor 1 and Pyro started grinding fervently for points. He could kill the goblin rider easily, but really struggled at pinning down the red boss slime. We decided to race. I tried killing the boss slime before Pyro could snipe its rider with some stone projectiles. Over and over again, we summoned the boss, killing it faster and faster until we were killing it within seconds of it spawning. Once it died, we would place a hand against the same rectangular palm scanner and the boss would be summoned once more.
Aside from farming points, I slowly tested out my new abilities.
Shirt : 89% imbued - Red Boss Slime. Effect : kinetic dispersal.
A day of farming and testing had produced what was undoubtedly the weirdest item I had ever seen. On the surface, it looked like every other shirt. It was grey and slightly scratchy with short sleeves. What made it weird was the slime imbuement. Whenever something hit the shirt, it would ripple like a slime and spread the impact to the entirety of the shirt, making a hard punch feel like a soft tap from every direction. It wasn’t as good versus piercing attacks, but Pyro’s rocks had to have quite a bit of force behind them before doing any real damage to me while I wore it.
I also took the time to tinker with my other new ability.
Class : Summoner, rank 4.
Soul Echo (rank tied to class rank). Passive. Effect: absorb a portion of your opponent’s essence upon their death, adding it to your Bestiary.
Summon, rank 3. Active. Cost: variable, diminished. Effect: summon the power of the souls in your Bestiary. Examine and influence the stats of the souls in your Bestiary. Reserve a portion of your maximum mana to allow summons to act freely, and as such, gain power independently.
Bestiary monsters: 4/5.
Soul Forge, rank 1. Active. Cost: variable. Imbue the souls from your Soul Forge into items.
Soul Forge slots : 1/1. Shirt : 89% imbued - Red Boss Slime. Effect : kinetic dispersal.
Soul Tinker, rank 1. Active. Cost: variable. Merge yourself or your summons with the souls of others to modify your own bodies and abilities.
Soul Tinker modifications : none.
I hesitantly willed my Soul Tinker ability to activate, bringing up a model of my own body along with those of my summons, and a list of the souls and their percentages that I had gathered in my Bestiary. Slimey, Rella, Garnush and Red Boss Slime all showed varying percentages of soul strength. I wasn’t going to waste any of Garnush or Rella’s power, and Slimey gained soul strength so slowly nowadays that it seemed like a shame to make him work hard to recoup what I lost with my experimentation. So, that left Red, the boss slime. And so, that left Bossy, the red slime. Nope, that’s not it. I’d think of a name eventually.
I selected the Red Boss Slime’s entry. It was at 43% due to all of the soul strength that I had pumped into my nifty new kinetic dispersal shirt. Still, when I focused on it, a list appeared.
Red Boss Slime attributes.
1. Kinetic Dispersal.
2. ?????????????
3. ?????????????
4. ?????????????
I assumed the kinetic dispersal was a known quantity, given that I had created a shirt with the same effect on it. The other three, I had to figure out by trial and error, which I wasn’t looking forward to. Thankfully, I had Garnush to help me out if I fucked up badly enough.
Back at the model of my own body, I tentatively selected my right hand as an area of my body to modify, then selected the Red Boss Slime, putting 10% of its soul strength in. When I accepted the confirmation prompt, my right hand instantly began tingling. It wasn’t necessarily burning, but more like it was asleep or had a thousand gentle ants crawling over it. Visually, nothing seemed to have changed.
I smacked a few leaves of grass, punched the ground, poked myself in the left arm… Nothing. Frowning, I put 15 more percentage points worth of Red Boss Slime soul power into my hand, bringing the total up to 25%. Again, there was a tingling sensation that didn’t quite go away, though my mind did its best to ignore it. If I didn’t clench my hand, it felt close enough to normal to not bother me. This time, when I grabbed a fist full of grass, the luscious green blades fizzled and smoked in my hands.
Aha. Acid hands.
I returned to the menu, and sure enough, it had been updated.
Red Boss Slime attributes.
1. Kinetic Dispersal.
2. Acidification
3. ?????????????
4. ?????????????
I cancelled my right hand’s modification, watching the soul power I had put into it vanish into the ether. I helped Pyro with slime bosses for another few minutes, bringing my boss slime’s soul percentage back up to 50%. Then, I did something potentially dangerous. I equipped my Slime King’s necklace and activated it just in case something went wrong. Then, I systematically went through my body, adding 25% Red Boss Slime soul power to different parts of my body before removing it. Hands became acidic. Legs became jelly, able to absorb a lot more impact when jumping or falling. Feet were amongst the weirdest augments, transforming into blobs that glided along the floor instead of having to walk.
Not feeling any adverse side effects when experimenting with limbs, I decided to kick it up a notch and try… internals. The effects were debatable at best until I infused my stomach and intestines with the slime’s power.
Red Boss Slime attributes.
1. Kinetic Dispersal.
2. Acidification.
3. Consumption.
4. ?????????????
Consumption… I didn’t think I felt much different, other than being slightly hungry. I tried willing my skill to give me more information, but to no avail. So, I tried eating. I ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. No matter how much I ate, I still had a slight sense of hunger, never quite feeling full. It was rather irritating, actually. Despite the perma-hanger coursing through my veins, I thought I was feeling slightly more rested, more energised, the more I ate. It was as if I was downing caffeine instead of plates of food. Even the slight aches and pains of a day of farming the boss slime had gone away as I consumed dozens of points worth of food.
I dumped another 50% of soul power into my stomach, bringing it to 75%, and instantly regretted it. I could feel my innards literally devouring myself from, well, inside. Molten pain shot through me as my organs liquified, consumed to feed the beast that was my own stomach. Unsatisfied, my stomach didn’t stop at the nearby organs, and soon the rest of my body was crammed, inch by inch, into itself. Right before I blacked out, I opened my Soul Tinker screen and released all body modifications.
Garnush greeted me back to the world of the living with a shit-eating grin. Or maybe that was just how gnolls smiled. I wasn’t sure.
I sheepishly farmed more boss slimes, adding more and more of the slime’s soul power into my stomach, percent by percent, until it hit 47%. That was my limit, not because I couldn’t go any higher, but because the constant drone of hunger in my stomach would be too much if I went any higher. As far as I could tell, I wouldn’t be digesting my other organs, but I’d keep an eye on it. Well, I’d… I’d monitor the situation, and if I felt like death was creeping up on me, I’d release the modification back to the pasture.
With my newly modified stomach, I looked over at Slimey, a new idea to test out clanking around in my mind. For Garnush to gain soul strength, we had to kill gnolls. Slimey was a cheater, though, who could consume his enemies to gain strength. I wondered if my new slime-augmented stomach could do the same. Silently, my eyes turned to the goblin rider. If I had to test it out, might as well be on a boss. Surely, I’d see results much faster than if I’d consume lower floor mobs.
Sighing, I opened the Festival Shop and searched for a bottle of hot sauce. Goblin probably tasted like ass, I would most certainly be needing the distraction.