Born a Monster

418 318 – Insidious

“Awr.” moaned a woman, as I stirred. “He’s gonna live.”

“Well, good for him. Good for him. Dead people make poor components.” there was a clang of tiny metal objects clacking together.

One of the first things you become aware of, it is said, is whether you are waking up in your own bed. I guess the leather slab I was lying on didn’t count. At least it provided some insulation from the floor below. Not much, but some.

There was enough gunk sealing up my eyelids that I had to pry them open with my fingers. Nothing resembling light registered.

[Serious Injury: Missing Eyeballs (fast healing).]

Right. Thanks, System. As if I were likely to forget.

I let out a yawn and smacked my lips together a few times. “When is the next meal?” I asked.

“Got me some shit stored over in the corner, if you’re hungry.” the male said.

“I’m afraid we bio-people need different food.” I said.

.....

“Oh, listen to you.” the woman said, “All fancy food and fancy manners. Ain’t no good being fancy down here. Fancy gets bent over and given an enema, here.”

“Oh, here we go,” moaned the male, “now you’ve set her off, and we’re going to hear about all her health problems for the last three years.”

“Will not.” she snapped back. “Only for how long I’ve been here.”

“How long is that?” I asked.

“Four years, as of next month.” she said.

Ugh. I’m not going over anyone’s litany of complaints, and especially not hers. Most of the ailments a dwarf will suffer from malnutrition, filthy environment, and poor hygienic practices, she had suffered at one time or another during her stay. “Ain’t nobody’s fault.” she said. “And better not be, else you’ll be the next in the Cracker.”

The man reached out a hand, clenching and moving as though measuring the top of my skull. “Oh. Oh. I’ve always wondered what squishy brains taste like. Not like ours, I hope. So bitter, yet so bland. Hmm, what do your brains taste like, do you know?”

“I imagine it’s a lot like cloves soaked in ammonia.” I said.

“Not good enough!” the male said. “Not nearly good enough. I don’t know what either of those tastes like.”

He whacked me in the head with a spoon. “Hrng. Not going to break that open with a single blow. Solid, like my wife’s.”

“He broke open his wife’s head, is how he ended up in here.” the woman said.

“Pox-infested woman! At least I didn’t go around pelting other people with my feces.”

“I never!” she denied. “I pelted them with other people’s feces. I’m not a barbarian. Here,” she scampered into a corner of the room, “let me SHOW you.”

“Hey,” the old man protested, now the target of petrified projectiles, “That’s MY food. Mine.”

If either of them noticed when I struggled to my feet and made my way out, neither said anything.

“Careful, careful.” crooned a male dwarven voice. “If the staff here thinks you’re sane, they’ll take measures to correct your behavior.”

I pointed my head back into the room I’d come from. “And how would you have dealt with that?”

“Me? I don’t have to deal with that.” he slapped his face. “It’s you lot that suffer from insanity. Me, I welcomed her with open arms. Never violent, though, no. Those are the people whose heads get cracked.”

He cracked his knuckles to emphasize his point.

[Your health is 6/80.]

If he chose to attack me, a lucky hit would put me out long enough to starve.

“So what does a body do for food around here?”

“Well, I see what you mean. You can’t exactly try to eat your fellow inmates. No, no. No violence.”

I sighed. “So where does one get food?”

“Oh, I see, I see.” he said. “Well, the good stuff is over here.” he said, walking away.

I puttered after him, counting my footsteps. It wasn’t reliable, but if I could get close enough to the proper room, the smell of my own blood would guide me the rest of the way.

“Here now, pharmacist!” he said, slamming his hand repeatedly against a slab of metal. “Awaken. Come!” And to me, “So hard to get good help these days. You’d think he works for someone else.”

In less than a minute, part of the metal slab was slammed aside. “What now, Jax?”

“Indeed, it is I, Jaksol, representative of... of... of THIS fine gentleman. His lordship wants the good stuff, enough for two people.”

“Heh.” the pharmacist replied. “Heard we got a squishy in. His lordship’s medicine isn’t in stock yet, Jax. He’ll just have to suffer without. You get yours after dinner.”

“And what’s for dinner?” Jax asked, “Is it rock soup?”

“It’s kibble and gravel, same as it is most nights.” the pharmacist said. “If there’s nothing else...” The door slammed back to what I presumed was closed.

“Well.” Jax said. “A fine lord you are!”

“I never said I was a lord.” I said.

“You did!” he insisted. “I heard you say so.”

“I am no lord.” I said. “I am a Truthspeaker, and literally cannot lie to you.”

“Oh. Well why didn’t you say so? Incognito, it is. But I hear the waltz starting, my lord. I am off to dance to win the affections of the toothless marm over here.”

It is an odd thing to guess what dance someone is performing from sound alone. Suffice to say, it was none I recognized.

I found my way to one of the tables. Okay, I had been heading back toward my room when I smacked my shin on the stone bench to one side of the table. Instinctively holding out my hand to break my fall, I discovered the table itself.

Silence, it is said, is golden. There was little enough gold in the common room; people would talk to each other, to their imaginary friends, even to themselves. Sometimes in different voices, and languages.

I blinked. Could someone possessed by a demon or devil have ended up here? It didn’t seem unlikely at all. Even if they weren’t, they might think or even act as though they were.

I flexed my hands, touched the talons to the palms of my hands. Someone had filed the points off and blunted the sharp edge. Damn it!

I flexed the Jaws of Wrath. Okay, I might be physically weaponless, but I still had my abilities. I could tap...

[This area is not dark enough to tap for Darkness.]

Well, that was... wait. I swirled the mana in my feet. The mana beneath the floor responded.

Underground, you are surrounded by Earth. Most of it is not pure enough to tap... but if you could get it moving, you could purify it, make it tappable. Normally, this is not done; it takes too long. Days.

It was looking increasingly like I had days.

Tapping madness in such an environment was almost a mistake. Remember how Madness was one of the four kinds of taint as well as a type of mana? It hadn’t responded to me tapping the environment, nor to my stirring of elemental mana. But the instant I began gathering Madness, the Tainted Madness woke up.

I clamped down on my chakras, on everything that linked me to the mystic world. Oh, merciful gods, I prayed, what have I done?

[Resist Taint against Taint Rating 4 is an ORANGE success for four times normal resistance. After Sin Armor (x4), zero points of Taint have been gained.]

It may not have been worth a point, but it wasn’t none. Even as I forced the Taint through the bloodstream into my kidneys, I knew it wasn’t none. Enough of these non-points, and I’d have a point of Taint. From there, I knew, any use of magic would feed it. Long enough, and there would be no pure point left in my soul.

And outside the borders of my soul, the Madness capered; it was hard to tell which inmates danced like puppets to its will, and which were just caught up in the sudden action.

My pride swept away in a swath of fear, I fled. I fled though halls and rooms, finding no shelter, only places less Tainted than others. I huddled against a barrier of metal bars and wept quietly.

Thus, I was there, when Madame Doctor Thuria, still dripping with black blood, and two others unlocked the door and came through, not noticing me.

“He-he-heh.” said the human. “It’s awake again.”

“Then we tap it into submission, again.” Thuria commanded. “WE are in charge here, not the Madness.”

I guessed tiny cymbals, but it was actually twin spoons. Some things are best perceived with actual vision.

Not an exact translation, but I choose not to digress into dwarven digestion, plumbing problems, and the treatment thereof. Suffice to say, it involves custom hardware and a steady hand to treat properly.

Nor did I recognize any of the dances of Jax once I had my sight back. He would take two or three moves from one, and then follow with a few from another, and so on. It wasn’t graceless or manic, but the pattern and cadence was known only to Jax himself. (Or maybe not.)