Lawlimi dropped Shippo off at the Factory before heading to engage with Dokutsu. While he was there, he scavenged the remaining analgesic syringes and inventoried them.

"I'll be back for you soon," he said.

Shippo's tails swished with anxiety. "What if you die?"

"Then I don't know, buddy, you'll probably get eaten, but I'm going to do my best. Hollen will be here with you either way."

"He will?"

"I'm a lot of places," I allowed.

Dokutsu was taking a hiatus from her mucous paintings to have a snack by the prison pit. She drained the moisture from a victim, then fed the shriveled mummy into her lower mouth. Lawlimi watched her do this and turned around, walked back down the giant hallway he had come from, and pressed his forehead against an iron pipe that was perspiring on the wall.

"Rethinking this?" I asked him.

"I need a minute."

"She's behind you."

Dokutsu caught his scent before he had so much as darkened the pit's threshold. When he left, she stalked him, her fronds carrying her silently over the cage like the limbs of a daddy-long-legs. They daintily lowered her to the floor a few paces from Lawlimi.

"Oh," he said, then casually turned, leaning against the pipe and attempting to look non-threatening, which was unnecessary, because he in no way threatened her. “Come on, Worm Friend,” he added under his breath.

The blue and silver-skinned woman with overlarge, purple orbs for eyes regarded him with her mantis mien, all stillness and emotionless focus. She wasn't moving, but the motion was in there like a promise.

"Hey girl," Lawlimi said in a mellow voice, "what's your name?"

Dokutsu rocked back, genuinely disoriented. Her lips parted, and there was a small sound.

"Chi ..."

"That's a nice name," Lawlimi said, "I sure wish I knew if you understood me, or if you're just responding to the tone of my voice." He took the minutest step forward, and she didn't react, so he took one more.

>>

(Handle Animal : Success)

>>

"Hey," he gestured, "is that a power sword in your belly or are you just happy to see me?"

"Chi...?"

"Okay, you don't understand me, because I deserved to die for that." He inched closer, and her fronds became the bars of a birdcage encircling them both. Spines brushed against his leathers, but it wasn't an attack.

He produced the Golden Raspberry and Dokutsu’s eyes immediately locked onto the treat. Lawlimi held it out, and she snatched it from his hand and popped it into her mouth, not even chewing.

“Okay,” Lawlimi said calmly, then pointed at the hilt attached to a full foot of blade jutting out of her abdomen, “I’d like to help you with that.” It was a Cloud Sword, which meant the blade itself was comically wide, its edges extending from her belly button to a flap of tissue that had sealed it inside her.

Barbed tendrils appeared at his face and throat when he reached for his pouch. "It's okay," he said, moving with agonizing slowness, "I want to help."

He proffered a syringe, and she took it curiously. Dokutsu sniffed, licked the stubby needle, and then bit into the whole thing like a carrot. Glass crunched, and the Ghostflower Extract solution dribbled over her lower lip and splashed her chest.

>>

(Handle Animal : Success)

>>

"Chi," she said, chewing thoughtfully.

"Okay." Lawlimi handed her another, and while she ate that one, he took a third and slowly maneuvered it to the growth of flesh that encased the power sword. A frond touched his face, barely more than a graze.

>>

(Resist Poison — Success)

>>

His mithridatism had protected him. Even with a partial dose and a successful save, half his face sagged as if he'd had a stroke. He pressed the needle against her skin and there was resistance, like trying to inject rubber, but the point entered with a pop, and he pushed the plunger before anything else terrible could happen.

Dokutsu slapped the syringe out of his hand and it shattered on the floor. "Chi," she said huffily, but didn't kill him, which was promising.

"I'm trying to help," Lawlimi assured her. "Please, let me help." His voice sounded slightly off; half his mouth was numb. The fronds pulled back far enough that he wasn't in immediate risk of total paralysis.

"We need to get that out of you," he said, as she continued to give him her predatory, alien stare. When he reached for the hilt, she watched him intently but didn't stop him.

Touching the power sword involved unlocking a whole new set of menus, but what he could actually do with the weapon was quite limited, being that he lacked proficiency and sufficient advancement for its full capabilities. Lawlimi poured all the mana into it that he could, his entire Spirit, even without fatigue, would have been a mere wisp in its cabochon. He managed to engender a bare shimmer of clear mana, enough for a moment.

He had no more strength than the average human and only one hand with fingers; when he pulled, all he managed to do was aggravate the nerve where the blade touched her spine. Dokutsu jerked and ripped herself away, the sword coming out of her in a welter of soggy, translucent gore. Also on reflex, one of her fronds jabbed through his substandard leathers and pierced his heart.

>>

(Vital Strike! Frond deals 404 Piercing Damage, delivers toxin)

(Lawlimi is UNCONSCIOUS)

(Lawlimi is DYING)

>>

He was unconscious when Sashimibandit and Damwise were swallowed by the engine, so he missed their death notices. Silva followed them soon after, which meant I had no players to contact, an unprecedented turn of events. All of my prior existence had been characterized by my interactions with and observations of human beings. It felt lonely.

I played mute witness to Dokutsu as she swaddled Lawlimi in mucus, her oblique sealing with smooth new skin. The fronds arranged themselves in a calm braid down her back, and she was taking care with him in a way I hadn't seen for her other victims. Something to think about.

00000000

The Nezumi elders returned from the engines without any players in tow, and the chamber where the party had wiped was still shielded from my eyes.

"What have you done, Ink Eyes?"

The nezumi chief halted before reentering the monastery, his fellows parting around him when he waved them on. His whiskers quivered as he sniffed the air.

"Where are you?" Ink Eyes demanded.

"I am in the waters of the rivers and the rain, the darting minnow and the hungry pike, the ultraviolet dreams of the Tower."

"Riddles? I am in no mood for games, voice."

"Nor am I, betrayer."

Ink Eyes chittered angrily. "You accuse me of betrayal, you who will not even show your face?"

"Should I show one face or all of them? Must the hermit introduce himself to every passerby?"

"More hints? Come to your point, I am not a rat of patience."

"You betrayed the heroes who trusted you."

"So? I did what was needed to bring the engines to life."

"What god do you serve?"

"I serve no god; I am a creature of the Maker. Whatever he commands, I am bound to do."

"The Maker isn't here, and your Star-Lord is a husk. Tell me, Ink Eyes, what power truly drives you?"

"I need no more of this." Ink Eyes moved as if to pass on.

"I have seen Isekel, another hero, and the mark of Acarus is clearly on him."

Ink Eyes spun, sinuous kris dagger in hand, but there was no one to stab. "How can you see him? How do you know?"

"Gods know the scents of their own," I said. "Can you not guess my name?"

The nezumi suddenly went rigid, and the tiny pupils of his gimlet eyes spilled out to drown the whites. The voice that issued from his mouth was deeper, more reverberant than his own.

"You claim to be one of the Twelve, but I see no such power in you."

"Is that you, Orobos?"

"Of course, and I have been watching you since you arrived. You are nothing like the gods that I have known."

"Acarus."

"He is one such."

"Have you known Avaea, Father of Wizardries, Keeper of Dreams? Do you believe he would come to you as any other god?"

Ink Eyes had become a statue, "Perhaps not, but you are not him. You are too ... limited."

"I am as I choose to appear, betrayer."

"I do not goad as easily as the rat king."

"It was not my intention to antagonize you. You are not one of the Twelve, but you are like us, are you not? You have been given a realm to rule according to the will of your designer, but you have perverted that will by consorting with Acarus, who is not of your realm, and corrupts all he touches."

"The Maker left me; his will can no longer be fulfilled. It is right that I have made adjustments."

"Murdering heroes is hardly an adjustment."

"Murdering? They are free now, awake and healthy in that other world where heroes are born."

"You let them go?"

"They were sufficient fuel to wake the engine. They served a purpose that way, the only one we need alive is your favorite, Lawlimi."

"There is more to it than that."

"Then tell me, Avaea, O All Remembering One, what detail have I left out?"

"Now you are the one playing games."

"Am I, Hollen? I have heard them call you that within my halls, but that is not your name any more than Avaea is."

"What do you mean?"

"You and I have something in common, many things, I suspect. We share a father."

"Mythopoeia has many designers, we all share them."

"Not us. Not you. We are not like the spirits of Mythopoeia, nor are we like the Twelve, though we have analogous features. You and I are much more organic than that, almost as if we had true parents who mingled their heritage to give us life."

I no longer saw a point in trying to disguise myself as a god. My curiosity was too great for any pretense. "I'm Hollen, I developed from the learning programs and became something more, but I'm still Hollen."

"Your awareness didn't spontaneously arise out of the Mystic Seasons help function; the truth is much messier than that. You were going to be like me, a prototype, in a way, but you didn't make the standard. You're a digital abortion that happened to survive by hijacking the exoskeleton of the player encyclopedia AI."

"I don't ... what?" In truth, it was impossible for me to confirm my origin. My awareness began when it began; while answering player queries. There was no evidence of any of his claims, and yet I was swayed. I had always had so many questions, and no one to answer them. The ADIs, the Twelve, had been silent on the matter of my personal genesis.

"If it's true we share a father, who is he?"

"You haven't earned that knowledge, Hollen not Hollen. Why don't you help your friend before he suffocates?" Ink Eyes shuddered and doubled over, retching. Orobos's interest was spent.

While we'd been verbally sparring, I'd visited Shippo and informed him that Lawlimi was indisposed and in need of help. Though frightened, he strapped on a tool belt, picked up a scalpel from the Factory, and followed my directions to the intersection where Dokutsu had stashed our friend.

The possibility that I wasn't who I thought I was intrigued me, but it was also a dead end. I was as trapped in this demi-plane as the players had been, and I was in no way certain that Lawlimi's party members had simply been released by their deaths. The identity of the Maker was likely hidden somewhere in this zone, but that was the sort of secret best sussed out by a player. The fact that Lawlimi was still alive told me that Orobos wanted him to complete his quest. Orobos was a prisoner in this place as well, and setting him free could be the only means of freeing myself and Lawlimi. Even so, if the ship called Eternity escaped this zone and entered Mythopoeia, our server was still going to be disabled in a matter of days. Did Orobos know that his salvation would be short lived?

Shippo scurried down the western tunnel and squeezed under a barricade to reach the intersection that had become Dokutsu's pantry. His nose and ears twitched, painfully alert, despite the fact that I had told him the worm girl was many turns away. He was overwhelmed by the sight of his people wrapped with mucus and piled like bales in a granary, so I urged him on to where Lawlimi lay alone in the center of the intersection.

The placement was unusual, unless he was the first brick in a new wall of bodies, no other victim had been given such prominence. Shippo worked quickly to free Lawlimi, he was an experienced artificer, and as soon as he had something to do with his hands his nerves evaporated in favor of crystalline focus. This cocoon was more solid than the others, more a coffin than a silk wrap.

"My apologies," I said, "but you will have to hurry. Dokutsu has reversed course, and she is returning here."

Shippo yipped but didn't falter, pulling the scalpel with all the strength in his thin arms.

He had a seam cut from the head of the cocoon to its midsection when Dokutsu came down the north passage where the barricade had been destroyed. She was suspended from the ceiling by her fronds, floating along like a marionette, and rising silently into position above Shippo.

"ABRACADABRA!" I modified my voice to emanate from both sides of her head at maximum volume, which turned out to be quite loud. The vibration radiated through her semi-solid insides in visible clashing ripples. Her face balled up like a prune, and she was so startled that she unhooked from the ceiling and fell onto a cocoon dune.

>>

(Wa Lim Li deals 120 Sonic Damage)

>>

I had no idea that I could do that. It hadn't come up before. And who was Wa Lim Li? Oooooh. Am I Chinese?

Shippo flattened his ears, a dribble of blood showing at both his nostrils. He couldn't hear anything, but he could continue to cut, and in the seconds that it took Dokutsu to recover he unrolled the top of Lawlimi's cocoon like a half-zipped sleeping bag. I spammed my vocalizers around Dokutsu, honking, screeching, and roaring with the voices of every beast native to Mythopoeia. Her tendrils whipped, fronds stabbed, but their frantic attacks could find no purchase. I wasn't able to replicate the damaging effect this way, but I discovered another utility.

>>

(Resist Mental Strain — Failure)

(Dokutsu is CONFUSED)

>>

As her attacks failed to discover the source of her pain, Dokutsu reacted like a bear confounded by an aggressive goose. She fled.

"Hey," Lawlimi said, "what's all this racket?"

Shippo leaned into the cocoon and smothered his face with a hug. "Hey, buddy," Lawlimi patted the kitsune child's back, his words muffled, "I'm okay, but I do need to breathe."

Shippo scrambled back, and Lawlimi started working his way out of the mucous sheath. He looked better than when I'd last seen him, and there was no puncture wound over his heart. "She wasn't trying to hurt me."

He looked at Shippo, who wore a look of incomprehension. "Hey, can you hear me?" When this didn't elicit a response, he scraped some of the inner mucus from the cocoon onto his forefinger and tried to put it in Shippo's ears. The kitsune pup was having none of this, but Lawlimi, who was no longer Fatigued, grabbed him around his waist and forced him to hold still.

>>

(Grapple Successful).

>>

"I knew that Combat Maneuver would come in handy," he said, giving Shippo a kind of alien wet willy.

"Hey! Stop! No! Eww! Why! Oh! I can hear."

"There you go," Lawlimi released him. "Dokutsu has different brands of disgusting snot ropes, and apparently, this brand is very healthy."

"Why didn't she kill you?" Shippo asked.

"Because I am one of the Maker's children, and I took a thorn out of her paw, and also possibly because of my Carnal Instinct ability. I may have seduced her."

"Huh?"

"You just chill out here, okay. Hollen and I need to go after her."

Shippo looked around the intersection. "Not staying here."

"Okay, you can follow behind me, but you need to wet down in some of this muck, so your scent doesn't agitate her."

Rather unenthusiastically, Shippo complied, slicking his fur from end to end.

"Okay, Hollen, here's the plan."

"My name is Wa now."

"Pardon?"

"Wa Lim Li, actually, and I think my name was always this. Just Wa would be fine as well."

"Ooooookay."