“This is pointless. We’re not going to be able to go through every book here in a reasonable amount of time. We should find the others and secure the manor first,” Wren complains loudly while standing in the middle of the library.
“We would if you stopped complaining and read faster,” Dahlia says, poking her head over the third floor bannister.
“I think they’re right,” Demy says, tossing yet another seemingly useless book to the pile on the floor. “The others might be in trouble. Besides, there are plenty of books in here that the three of us can’t even read.”
“And one of those things might stumble in here any minute and catch us unprepared,” Wren adds.
“Oh, so now you want to find others!” Dahlia shouts down. “You said you wanted to find out why the old man made this house!”
“Well, yeah! But I didn’t mean that I wanted to find that out while ignoring the others and the monsters just outside the door,” Wren argues.
“You did not specify!” Dahlia loudly argues back. “You did not complain when we started reading!”
“That’s just because I wanted a reason not to talk to Demy for a few minutes!” Wren yells.
“Hey, rude,” Demy says, frowning.
From one of the darkened aisles of the library, the three hear a soft groan. They freeze, eyes wide, as someone says, “What’s with the yelling? I was having a righteous little nap.”
Demy and Wren share horrified glances, uncertain of what to do. From up above, Dahlia breaks the awkward silence by yelling:
“Sorry! We didn’t know the library was occupied!”
A series of footsteps and a soft rustling sound comes from a few aisles over. Demy steps in front of Wren slightly, holding his arm in front of them protectively as he waits for whoever–or whatever–it is to appear.
“Wha–I don’t need you to protect me,” Wren hisses quietly at him, cheeks growing ever so faintly flush.
“Shh,” Demy growls, obviously not interested in arguing the point.
Wren takes a step back, deeper into the aisle, and begins considering their options for a potential tussle in this library. Fire will damage the books, though ice could also do some damage when it thaws. Maybe something less physical, something to demoralize or subjugate: It just sounds like one person, after all.
“If you can cover me, I’ll try to charm them or something,” Wren says quietly.
“Gotcha. You go low with the magic and I’ll go–”
Demy is cut off as the stranger rounds the end of the aisle of shelves, coming into the light of Wren’s floating moon-orbs. There are plenty of things about the stranger that causes Demy and Wren to both freeze, thoughts of striking first completely leaving their minds, though perhaps just how tall the person is might be the first thing to register.
He is taller than Demy by over a foot, maybe more, easily in the seven to eight foot range of height. He is as spindly as he is tall, wearing a very simple tunic and slacks in earthy tones, with bare feet. His hair is almost humorously long and straight, actually dragging the floor in strands that are a mossy green color, reminiscent of Dahlia’s.
As surprising and odd as those features are, it is his eyes and mouth that cause Demy and Wren the most alarm: Sleepy, blank eyes without pupils and a row of serrated teeth within his slightly agape mouth.
Just like those monsters from the foyer.
“Howdy. Is this your house?” The strange man asks, flashing a smile that can’t help but come off as unsettling.
“... Hi,” Demy says, finishing his sentence from before, but with a vastly different meaning than intended. Staring up at people is not something he is used to.
It is, however, something Wren is used to, though not quite this severely. They answer, fumbling over their words a bit, “I, uh, n-no? This is Tarn’s, uh, house. Who a-are you?”
“Death from above!” Dahlia shouts as she leaps from the third floor banister, sneering in bloodthirsty abandon as she careens toward the stranger, flecks of deadly spores spreading off of her as she plummets–
Directly into the man’s arms as he reaches up and gently plucks her from her fall. If he jumped, he likely could have just grabbed onto the landing and hauled himself up.
“Ohp, careful now little fella,” the stranger says with a smile. “That would’ve been a nasty tumble to take.”
Dahlia, caught entirely off guard, just lets herself be held like a stuffed toy in the giant’s grip. He carefully leans over and sits her down on the floor beside Demy and Wren, staying bent over as he speaks to the three on their level.
“My name is, uh,” he stops, scratching his cheek with an abnormally long finger. “You can call me Kem. They might not get mad at me over that.”
“Greetings, Giant Kem,” Dahlia says, holding her comparatively very, very small hand up to him in offering. He takes it with a single finger, shaking up and down slightly. “I’m Dahlia. This is Demy and Wren.”
“Nice to make your acquaintance,” Kem says, his voice a low rumble, coming out with the same slow, gentle quality that his movements have. “This isn’t your house, then?”
“Uh, no. This place belonged to an older man named Tarn, he passed away. We got sent here to find out why he built this place, actually,” Wren says, staring up at Kem in awe. They sense no malice from him, but they have so many questions they want to ask.
“Oh. It wasn’t here last time I stopped by, is all,” Kem says. “How long has it been here?”
“Ten years or so, I think?” Demy answers. After a second, the cogs in his brain turn and he blurts out, “Wait, did you say ‘last time I stopped by?’ You’ve been on the Heart before?”
“What’s ‘The Heart?’” Kem asks, standing up straight once more. The other three have to crane their necks to continue looking him in the face. Dahlia, even, takes a few steps back to achieve this.
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“This continent? The Heart of Vale,” Wren explains.
Kem stares at the three blankly for a moment before letting out a hearty chuckle. “That’s what you call it, huh? That’s cool as,” he says with a big, serrated smile.
“Giant Friend Kem?” Dahlia asks, seemingly already considering this impossibly tall, mysterious figure to be of companion quality. “What are you? Are you like those monsters out in the foyer?”
“‘Monsters?’” Kem repeats sleepily. “Oh, the failures. They didn’t turn out, so not really, no.”
There are so many questions that Wren wants to ask, but only one of them sits at the front of their mind so sternly that they can’t help but ask it, despite Dahlia already doing so: “What are you?”
Kem looks down at Wren curiously, head slightly tilted, like a bored child staring at an ant. For the first time in this conversation with Kem, Wren can feel something radiating from him that isn’t just tired amusement. It’s not a feeling Wren has ever felt before, not one they can describe, but it makes them shudder with a mixture of fear and awe at this thing looming over them.
They watch as Kem opens his mouth and produces a sound not unlike the groaning, clicking amalgamation that those monsters from the foyer made before. Except this time it sounds like an educated utterance, an actual form of communication, as the two sounds reverberate together in disturbing harmony.
The sound produced has no literal meaning to Wren. It is not recognizable as a word or phrase, waiting to be translated in some other language. This sound has no analogy to any modern utterance, both in form and meaning, though there are certainly those who would try to use some linguistic vector to convey the meaning, though none would come close to conveying the actual impact of this sound.
Yet, Wren knows what the sound is. What it means. It is an answer to their question, to Dahlia’s: It is what Kem is.
Even though he has spoken in the common tongue with the same amount of ease as themselves, there is no word for what he is. Even if there was, Wren understands that it would not carry the same weight as the harmonic intersection of noises that sound so far removed from that which the living refer to as a language that it isn’t even fair to compare them.
Dahlia, bless her, does not seem to care for the sanctity of this sound. She tries, very unsuccessfully, to repeat it back to Kem. Both Wren and Demy worry that the attempt to do so will be taken as offensive, as blasphemous, somehow.
Kem, however, only laughs: A slow, throaty, genuine guffaw.
“That’s pretty close!” Kem says, leaning down–way down–to Dahlia. “You’re missing a few internal mandibles to hit the high trill, though.”
He smiles and opens his mouth wide, as if showing her something. Dahlia’s eyes widen in amazement, though Demy and Wren aren’t sure they want to see just what she is being given the chance to view.
“Whoa,” is all Dahlia can manage.
From somewhere on the other side of the manor, muffled by distance and layers of building, a loud, thunderous sound echoes. It causes all four to jump, Kem included. After a few seconds, the sound happens again.
“Do you think that’s the others?” Wren asks.
“Sounds like fighting to me,” Demy says.
“‘Others?’ There are more of you?” Kem asks.
“Yeah. Like we said, we came here to find out why Tarn came to this continent in the first place. When we got here those things, the… Failures? There were a lot of them in the foyer and they attacked us; we got separated,” Wren explains.
“Oh, that’s my bad,” Kem admits sheepishly. “They follow us around like useless children.”
Us? Demy mentally echoes.
“I need to leave, anyway. They should follow me out,” Kem says, letting out a groan as he stretches, letting out a yawn. Obviously his nap could have gone on a bit longer.
“Wait–” Demy begins, but Dahlia cuts him off.
“Don’t go! Are you from here? Do you know what those ‘Failures’ are protecting? Could you help us search this island? Do you know if there are any cool mushrooms that live here?” Dahlia asks, trying to fit in as many questions as she can in the smallest amount of time, sensing that their time to ask such things is quickly fading away.
Kem stops and stares down at Dahlia for a long moment; he reaches his long arm down, hand clasping her on the shoulder (and most of her side, with how large said hand is). He leans down and smiles warmly, though there is something menacing in his dead eyes.
“You do not belong on this land. None of you do,” he says, gaze moving across Demy and Wren. “Leave before you do something foolish.”
Dahlia stands her ground, even though her body tells her to cower at the large man’s gaze. Stubbornly, she asks, “Tell us why.”
Kem seems to consider this for a long few moments. Another thunderous blast echoes in the distance.
“No,” he finally says. “I’ll be in enough trouble as it is.”
With that, he stands fully and turns, taking long strides over to a set of double doors on the very edge of the light’s illumination. He opens one of the doors and stoops to actually fit through the frame, pausing briefly.
“You said you are here to know why the owner built this house? You should check the basement,” Kem says softly. “But after that, you should leave. If there are more of you, tell them to leave.”
He scowls and mutters, “Some things deserve to remain forgotten.”
With that, he closes the door behind him.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Can you believe that these things have three hearts? Three!” Addy exclaims excitedly, covered in tar-like gore and surrounded by multiple of the monsters and their innards, all splayed out in compartmented piles on the stone floor.
“Our surprise knows no limits,” Kaz says tiredly, sitting on the edge of the fountain, using a damp cloth to wipe the sweat from her brow.
“You keeping track of body counts?” Cashew asks, laying on the floor beside Kaz, exhausted.
“Enough to know I’m ahead of you,” Kaz says with a smirk.
Beside the two of them, CAM lets out a couple beeps of mirth.
“Oh fuck you–Addy tell your stupid, er, dog to keep its mouth shut!” Cashew yells.
“It’s not a dog! And has no mouth!” Addy says, using a long bone from one of the creatures to help snap open another’s rib cage.
“Stupid dogs and their stupid mouths,” Cashew mutters to himself.
“Addy, have you found out anything about those creatures from your research?” Kaz asks, glancing over at her.
“Yeah! They have organs!” She says.
Cashew groans into his hands.
“Whole bunch of ‘em!” She adds.
“Enlightening,” Kaz says, slowly rising to her feet. “By my counts we’re about a quarter of the way through all of them. Are we ready for another wave?”
Cashew slowly pushes himself into a sitting position and says, “If the others haven’t solved the secret of this place by the time we’re done, I’m going to throw Addy’s dog at them.”
“You don’t seem as worried about them now,” Kaz says, using the fountain to clean off the thick layer of gore on her blade.
“That was before we killed a dozen of the stupid fucks,” Cashew admits, stretching to make his back pop loudly.
“Thirteen,” Kaz corrects.
“Shut up,” Cashew snaps.
The sound of a large door swinging open from out in the foyer causes the two to stop bickering and stare at the stone door in surprise. A minute drags by. Then two.
Cashew quietly creeps over to the door, glancing back at Kaz, who gives a small nod. He quietly pulls the door open, peeking out into the foyer.
“Well?” Kaz asks quietly.
“I don’t see any of them,” Cashew whispers back. He turns to get another look out into the foyer, only to see an eye staring back through the gap in the door. With a startled cry, Cashew jerks back from the door, slamming his head into one of the torch sconces on the wall in his frantic attempt to flee.
“Cash!” Someone yells.
It’s the last thing he hears before the world spins and the ground rushes up to meet him, bringing with it only darkness.