The forgotten Understadt

Places below, Fourth Ring

“How do you know?” Annabelle asked.

One simple question peered straight into Tharia’s construct of lies. It would be easy to come up with yet another lie. Just like that - at the snap of a finger. The house of lies would grow in strength and complexity. She had done these things in the past, those bruises existed because she fell down stairs and no, those weren’t tears it’s just some flower that got into the eye.

Tharia felt a breeze of air on her skin. This city beneath the city was really quite curious. It was obvious were some of the houses had come from, they simply toppled down from above. But what manner of place was this? Why was there another settlement so far below and why was there a ceiling of obsidian atop it all?

“Tharia”, she heard Annabelle say.

Right, couldn’t let it go. A rush of anger pulsed through her. She had always operated her mind close to the edge. Not by choice but rather by necessity, you can only shove so many emotions aside until they come back with a vengeance. These days, it was mostly anger and confusion, no doubt spurred on by the manipulation of the Muse – but enough of it was her own.

“Fairy!”

“Leave me the fuck alone”, Tharia snapped and instantly regretted it. She had done it again. Tharia gave her own cheek a slap. The pain brought clarity, so she did it again and again until Annabelle snatched her hand. Stupid. Idiotic. Immature. Annabelle’s eyes burned with the intensity of a sun. There was so much clarity of emotion contained within just a look. She wrested her hand free and then held it up against the backdrop of the Undercity. The ring glinted in the blue hue of the mushrooms.

“I’m sorry. The fact of the matter is that I’m a lying snake. My very essence is selfish. When I made the decision to hide the truth from you, it wasn’t to protect you – it was so I could bind my fate to yours”, Tharia said in a hushed tone.

“What are you...”, Annabelle didn’t even get four words out before Tharia raised her voice again. The human woman knew she had to get this out now before it festered any longer. So what if this ended the world. Her family threw her out to the wolves and yet this ring marked whose property she was. She had tried to escape her brother and here she was running back to him. The moment she thought herself stronger than her family, the Muse had toyed with her mind. Then, when finally she made a conscious decision to act on her own and protect her friend from herself, it too was based on lies and deceit. Worst of all it was at some odd creature’s behest. She could do no right.

This was all on her. She was weak and allowed others to do this to her. Everything she touched, she dragged down into a spiral of destruction. Tharia realized the irony of having reached these crossroads many times before. This time would be different is what she always thought and then brought it down in a spectacular mess. This, however, would be her magnum opus, another tantrum with the potential to do tremendous harm. Who better than her to be at fault for the destruction of the world? Words suddenly poured out of her. They brought with it a strange emotional buzz.

“You snapped, Annie. The Dreamreaper won. You killed indiscriminately. When a chance presented itself to bring you back, I took on the cost and lied to you about it. I wanted to be of importance to you”

Annabelle took a deep breath and then simply leaned closer. This wasn’t the reaction she had expected. She had an even more serious expression on her face as she got uncomfortably close. Tharia started to squirm, but strong hands held her in place until Annabelle’s face was but a hair’s breadth away.

“You stupid little idiot”, Annabelle said. Tharia blinked. Had she heard that right?

“Well Fairy, you’re good at what you do”, the goddess continued with her breath brushing against Tharia’s lips.

“I’m the best at making others miserable”, Tharia said with a nod. She believed it. Right now she was willing to throw away the world on a whim. All her life she had been someone’s plaything.

“No, idiot. You’re the best at seeking fault with yourself. How can this possibly be your fault? I snapped, I killed, I forced you to sacrifice that child, my fragility forced you to lie for me”, Annabelle said and curiously enough, she managed several sentences without getting stuck on words. Tharia opened her eyes wide – Annie knew about the child? Everything came crashing down. She wanted to reply, but Annabelle pressed a finger against her lips.

“No. Shut up. I’ve prepared these words for a long time. You’ve hurt me, yes. You did so when you told me everything was alright when you were in pain. You did so, when you pushed yourself to come onto me, when you weren’t ready, just because you thought I wanted you to”, Annabelle said and ever so slightly brushed her lips along Tharia’s. However, she wasn’t finished yet.

“This is why you’re stupid. I love you. End of Story. That includes all the lies, your temper, and troubles. It includes the moments when I can’t fathom what’s driving you forward and it also includes when you just can’t shut up for one minute. Don’t bend yourself for my sake. The Tharia you try to change into is not who I came to love in the first place”

Tharia heard the words and had trouble accepting them. Part of her laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. Two old friends were stuck in the middle of a monster infested nightmare and they took time to sort out their feelings. How utterly ludicrous was this?

“Maybe we should keep going. We’re kind of arguing in a monster infested city and well”, Tharia suggested and averted her eyes and with lower tone to her voice, she added, “I wasn’t pushing myself back then, however. That you must know”

She felt fingers on her chin and found her face forced back to look at Annabelle again.

“You’re not running away this time. As I said, I had a lot of time to prepare this. Tell me that you’re not at fault for this”, Annabelle demanded.

“I’m the one at the heart of the issue, how could I not be...”

“Tell me you’re not at fault”, Annabelle insisted. Tharia tried to wrest away but Annabelle was simply stronger.

“I’m not at fault”, she whispered.

“Louder”

“I wasn’t my fault, okay?” Tharia shouted. She didn’t believe it. Years of being trained as a self-deprecating toy for her families whims and aggressions didn’t allow it. Yet the fiery passion in Annabelle’s usually so listless eyes made it obvious that Annabelle would not accept such thinking and it did something to Tharia deep within.

“Good. Now fairy, who do I love?”

“I’ll try my best to be better for...”, Tharia whimpered under the gaze.

“You weren’t listening. Who is the girl I fell in love with?”

Answering that question was hard for the human girl. There was no way anyone could really love her. She was broken, flawed, at times vile and insufferable. Yet it was obvious which answer Annabelle wanted to hear.

“It’s me”, Tharia said.

“Good. I know you don’t believe it yet. I’m stupid just like you. I know how we two think. But until you do, you will act like you believe it, until the day you do. With that, I won’t inquire why you know how the Dreamreaper looks. You’ll tell me when you’re ready”, Annabelle said and then stopped talking. An awkward silence came over them. Tharia ran a finger along Annabelle’s cheek and put up a weary smile.

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess”, she whispered.

“Well, whose fault is that?”

“I know, I know”, Tharia said and smirked, “Not mine, is what you want to hear. Uh, moving on, you know I’ve never heard you speak so many sentences at once”

Instead of an answer, Annabelle reached underneath her armor and pulled out a single sheet of paper. She quietly handed it to Tharia. It was an entire, overly elaborate document written by hand. It contained a multitude of options for how Tharia could have reacted and then countered with Annabelle’s replies. She noticed some of the words on there as she had heard them just moments ago. Seeing her name circled with images of flowers made her laugh.

“This is the creepiest love letter I’ve ever gotten”, she said and smiled, then took it for herself, “It’s the best”

Annabelle wasn’t so pale anymore. Actually, she had gotten a bit of red color on her cheeks. They weren’t kids anymore but she could still blush and it was so adorably cute that Tharia just had to snuggle herself against her. Too late did she realize a new layer of spores had once more pasted onto her face. She tried to rub it off.

“I’m willing to forget this happened if you are” she repeated the earlier phrase and looked up at her friend.

“No, I’m not willing to forget that look”, Annabelle replied with an actual, honest to the lost gods, grin.

“I hate you”, Tharia whispered in the same playful tone as before, while her face glowed with the light of two thousand not quite suns. More like spores, really.

The forgotten Understadt

Ground level, Fourth Ring

The silence around Tharia reminded her of the Whiskerhushs. In the city above, there were always random noises. Some monster would bellow in the far-off reaches, something tripped over random objects, all manner of sounds signified life, however weird it had become. Down here reigned the quiet of death. She kept closer to Annabelle than was necessary. Being down here made her feel lonely and hopeless.

They passed a row of massive bones to their left. Whichever animal or beast these had belonged to was now long dead. Hole in the ground revealed a massive underground lake beneath their feet. Tharia felt a pang of fear as she imagined that all that kept her standing was a crust of bone dust and century-old decay. She looked back up to distract herself. Above her, she saw what had once been a sort of village. The various houses were attached to a sort of net that reached from one bone to another. One detail caught her attention, these houses were upside down, caught in that strange net that kept them in place.

Tharias imagination brought her the image of a several hundred meters long beast carrying an entire village around with it. She shook her head at the absurdity.

“Well it’s not more insane than floating palaces”, she remarked

“What is?”

“Oh, I was just thinking these houses look like they were carried by these beasts. You know there’s something else I’ve been wondering. I’m no expert on water, but wouldn’t this be the groundwater of the capital?” Tharia said and carefully tapped a foot onto the ground.

Annabelle lowered her gaze and nodded quietly.

“Doesn’t that mean that all these dying beasts polluted the drinking water? Uh, I’m going to be wary of water now”, Tharia spoke with a shiver. Just speaking about it reminded her that her clothes were still somewhat wet. The two women then reached an obstacle in the form of a wall that had fallen down from the Fourth Ring. Annabelle tried to scale it a few times and once she was satisfied with her approach, she helped Tharia get over it. It still didn’t feel great to essentially be dragged along but this was one matter where pride wouldn’t get her anywhere. She couldn’t climb. And that’s just the way it was.

When they got down on the other side, Tharia suddenly held her breath. They looked directly at a room the likes of which she had never seen before. A smooth marble floor, save for a few fresh cracks, served as the foundation for a style of furniture that seemed just odd. There were chairs but they looked like spirals of gold that had just accidentally taken on a functional shape. A chandelier hung from the golden ceiling, it itself had the form of a teardrop with actual flowers growing out of it.

This was but half a room, the rest lay smashed underneath the Fourth Ring houses, which meant that the fragment of the golden palace had been down here for longer. Annabelle had already stepped inside the room, yet Tharia felt apprehensive. She stood in the presence of something divine. No, her Annie didn’t count. This was a place that had never been touched by humans, it was a taboo millennia old and those that tried had been turned into cautionary tales for children.

Annabelle must have felt her apprehension because she suddenly grabbed her arms and forced her to enter the room. When her feet touched down onto the marble, she felt a subtle vibration entering her body. It was an odd sensation that kept her uneasy. Her friend, on the other hand, continued towards the door at the end. Tharia followed with fearful steps, she was still afraid that lightning might strike her down.

“It’s too weak to open”, Annabelle suddenly said and pressed her hand onto the door. Whenever she touched it, strange symbols and runes appeared as flowing letters. They actively resisted being read, hurrying away from her eyes. Tharia closed in and tried to focus on the symbols but it proved impossible. They wouldn’t let her read them. She pursed her lips for a moment.

“Those look like my barrier”

Her lovely goddess tilted her head to the side and then nodded. Was it just Tharia’s impression or did her friend start to show more emotion than before? She didn’t mind, trying to read something from a stone could be proper difficult. Still, when Annabelle held out her hand, Tharia instantly wished her love would try to communicate just a bit more.

“What?”

“The barrier”

Still not following, Tharia simply reacted. She pulled the barrier chain from her supply bag and handed it to Annabelle. Her eyes then took a cheeky look at her friend from all direction before innocently focussing on the chain in hand. The silver-haired woman pressed the many armed chain against the door but nothing happened. She then handed the chain back.

“You try”

Tharia took the chain and wrapped it around her arm. Her fingers touched the stone of the door, it felt strangely warm to the touch. Nothing happened either until she opened her mouth.

“Holy Bethany, I seek your help. Open this door?”

Her voice trailed off into a question at the end. The chain around her arm started to glow. A miniature humanoid figure suddenly appeared. It headed straight for the door and a breath later, the heavy door parted in two, opening the way.

“What, how?”

Tharia was dumbstruck. There was no way her trusty chain had opened a door of the gods. Yet it had done just that.

“I’ve had my suspicions”, came Annabelle’s voice with a ponderous tone, “I think your barrier was once part of a golden palace”

“What? No, that can’t be. Look, I got this long before the whole end of the world day happened. The palace was still above the clouds at the time. This thing was an old family heirloom. Wait, a golden palace? I thought there was only one?”

Tharia examined the glowing chain closer. This didn’t even look like what she saw of the palace. The structure around her, even more prominently the hallway they had opened up, was limitless opulence. Reliefs had been carved from stone, they told entire stories along the length of the hallway. Not a single speck of dust dared enter here and it was then that Tharia realized that neither she nor Annabelle had a single spore on her anymore. Tharia continued vocalizing her stream of thoughts.

“Well if this is a tool of the gods, it shouldn’t work for me. The only divine spark I have is from you and I got that long after I learned to work the barrier”

They walked past a number of rooms on either side of the hallway. Whenever they passed one, the barrier chain sent out a humanoid floating figure and as a result, the doors would slide open. No room was like the others and none looked as weird as the one they had used to enter. Annabelle suddenly stopped in front of her. She held up a hand.

“Careful, I heard something”

Tharia nodded and reached for the rapier. The only weapon she still had was one ill-suited for her physique. Then again, most weapons were, as they relied on agility and strength, neither of which she had.

Suddenly, Tharia heard something as well. It was a steady rhythm of a thumping noise. Yet the thumping sounded oddly wet. Tharia slowed down and lifted the Rapier up while Annabelle brought out the Scythe. It was always worth a look to see how the golden flakes of light came into being and then formed into a weapon all on their own.

They slowly closed in on the sound when they reached another set of doors. Like before, the barrier chain activated them both and with a scratching sound, they both opened up. A revolting stench came from a room on the left, as came the wet thumping noises. She saw Annabelle clasp her hands around the handle. She held it between her and the door. They exchanged a glance and then ran inside.

Tharia had barely crossed the door when she wanted to stumble back out, pull a blanket over her head and pretend a world like this didn’t exist. The sound belonged to a nude man of indiscernible age. He was an adult, that was all Tharia could tell. Blood ran down his forehead, the skull had cracked open but right in front of her eyes, the wound was already closing again.

Thunk. The man smashed the head against the wall again. Another ugly thunk could be heard, followed by a crunching sound. Tharia felt nauseous. It took her a while to notice that the man was, for all intents and purposes, tied to a strange plant-like apparatus. Thick flower trunks combined with his arms – the other end disappeared into what looked like an oversized flower bulb. It pulsed in accordance with the same golden pulse that ran throughout the entire palace.

Thunk. Crunch.

This time she saw it clearly. As soon as the man hurt himself, the strange flower pumped something into him. Almost instantly, the wounds healed up again. Annabelle stood as frozen as she was herself. Too absurd was what they were seeing.

Thunk. Crunch. Pulse.

Annabelle suddenly stepped forwards and used the blunt side of the scythe to push the man away from the wall. He still slammed his head forward but this time, it didn’t hit anything. Another pulse let the man jolt upright. He clutched his hand around his throat and started to choke himself.

Gargling noises. Pulse. Repeat.

Tharia stepped in as well, she reached for his arms and pulled them back behind his back. He gave surprisingly little resistance. That is until blood suddenly ran from this mouth.

Pulse. More blood and a bit of tongue spit onto the floor. Pulse. More blood. Another piece. Curiously, the plant used tiny tendrils to snatch up the flesh. It disappeared into a golden mist and re-entered the flower bulb.

“Stop. It!” Tharia shouted and the man actually did stop. He turned his head and look at her with feverish eyes. All the blood on his skin was gone, falling off as golden flakes of light. His fingers suddenly snatched up her hand and he gazed directly at her sigil ring.

“Please”, he spoke with a broken voice and an accent thick and barely comprehensible. Tharia had serious trouble understanding his words and pieced most things together from books she had read.

“I’m sorry mistress Dalman. I won’t talk about the old ways anymore. Have I not suffered enough? If you can’t kill me, can you at least tell me if my son did become king?”

Tharia raised her eyebrows and pulled back her hand. Why had he called her Dalman? The theocracy died out many centuries ago with the active helping of a very violent and public revolt. Good riddance too. They were a tyrannical religious dynasty that spread fear and destruction for too long. Tharia glanced at her ring. She would need to look up old heraldic. Annabelle had snaked her scythe around his neck in the meantime. Much to her annoyance, the man leaned into the blade. One pull and the head would come off. Given the efforts of the plant, however, it probably wouldn’t be for long. Tharia blinked and collected her thoughts, before addressing the man again.

“You’re Cathrion’s father?” she said and shot a quick glance towards Annabelle. The goddess shook her head. Her face could barely contain her emotion, it was odd to see that doll-like face twisted with open anguish.

“I don’t know a man of that name”, he replied.

“Prince Cathrion in divis Deliaster. The man that married my divine friend over here”, she nodded towards Annabelle with an apologetic smile. It wasn’t her intention to tear up old wounds, but something about this man seemed off.

“Deliaster?” the man said and furrowed his eyebrows “That’s the women we paid to finish the Second Ring. Did she finish it? How long have I been here? No, no the second wall was still decades away”

That was one word for it. The second ring was finished more than a millennium ago. It happened during the several hundred years long reign of the Dalman Theocracy. Tharia felt a twisting knot in her stomach.

“I beg you”, the man now looked directly at Annabelle, his voice took on a haunting tone that was devoid of all hope, “If you’re really divine, can you kill me, please? I’d like to die now. I think I’ve been here for a while.”

End: The Understadt | Coming up: To repay a favor