“Hello, hello, how are you guys?” I say, resting a hand on the bundle of rocks and roots, hacking into their brain chips and forever copying their senses over to my own mind. “Where are you headed? A work trip?”

“Ah yes, we’re going back home. There is quite the demand for our expertise and-”

“Good to know, nice meeting you, bye!” I call over my shoulder, channelling my best imitation of Vii as I hop to the next table, touching shoulders and shaking hands. I leave my mark on them and expand my vision of the universe through them.

The ship is abuzz with the chaos of civilised life, there is a general air of excitement, but not so much as to be uncomfortable for those relaxing on the fringes of the room. Everyone is rather welcoming, even as I run about touching everyone that I can, none of them ever seem to think that I might have bad intentions. They laugh off the antics with good graces, or at worst a little awkward silence.

These are the people of the Unified States.

They navigate the unspoken rules with the natural elegance of a fish swimming through the ocean, unconcerned about the hungry gazes of the sharks and the dolphins. They have no reason to fear the welfare officers, at least not today.

These people go to work and apply themselves, not for the compensation, but for the sake of fulfilling their social obligations. They return home with time enough to spend on their families and friends, though I wouldn’t say that they can freely enjoy any hobby, they do still have decent lives. For those who fit, it’s quite a nice life.

Some of us simply don’t belong here.

I can’t understand the unspoken rules, and the welfare officers are a constant threat to me and mine, one I’d rather not have looming over my shoulder every second of my life. I can’t trust them, I can’t trust anyone other than myself and my lovers.

“Did you get everyone?” Eshya asks, raising a brow and shaking her head at my antics. Vii might be willing to go with me for this sort of thing, but not Eshya.

“Everyone? Hardly. I can’t get the staff without barging into the kitchens, and the other ‘forbidden’ parts of the ship.”

“Yes, well it would be rather easy for someone unfamiliar with the ship to accidentally damage some of the magical workings,” Adler says.

“Are you saying that I’d break something?”

“You would break something,” Eshya says flatly.

“Hey, no teaming up on me!”

“There are no rules against sudden, convenient alliances,” Eshya says. “Besides, there aren’t any rules between us, only love.”

“How is picking on me convenient for you, my love?”

“I love how cute you are when you squirm.” She smirks at me, her fingers drumming out a nervous rhythm on the table as she pretends not to be so nervous.

“Then maybe you should’ve fallen for a worm instead,” I say, kicking lightly at her foot under the table.

“Wait, you’re not a worm?”

“I’m clearly not.

“What? I thought you were a mutant worm with arms and legs, and a patch of hair.” She tries to trap my foot under the table, happy to make this battle a war.

“Now you’re just being silly.”

“I mean… not really.” Vii interrupts us, “My close ancestors were birds, and there are lots of people who have new generation elvish features. People whose parent’s weren’t elvish at all, but they’re practically the full thing. What about you, Adler?”

“My parentage is mixed,” She admits, waving the question off. “I don’t like to think too much about my ancestry if you don’t mind.”

“See, you could totally be hiding the fact that you’re a worm,” Eshya concludes.

“You shouldn’t be so mean to worms.”

“By comparing them to you?”

“It’s a harsh comparison for them, they’ll never live up to your expectations ever again. No matter how talented, nothing from the earthworms to the massive sandworms of Dune can be compared favourably to me.”

“What about the great wyrm?” Vii asks.

“That doesn’t sound foreboding at all. Go on, tell us of this monster that is apparently glorious enough to compare to my divine self.”

“Divine? Hardly.” Eshya laughs.

“Well, it could just be a myth, but it’s supposed to be one of the oldest creatures to survive creation.”

“Creation?”

“The beginning of all things, it’s like a long time ago, scholars argue about the details a lot, but they’re mostly sure that we came into existence at that time. They just ague if we came into existence from nothing, or we were teleported from somewhere else, or a dozen other things.

“Anyway, the wyrm has supposedly come from all the way back then. It eats holes through space and time, leaving massive tracts of empty space in its wake, but it’s gone by the time anyone looks.”

“Horrifying, do I have to fight that too?”

“No one’s saying that,” Adler says, shaking her head.

“Exactly, if we find it, let me have a go at it first,” Eshya says. “You can’t take all the exciting fights.”

We all shudder as the teleportation drags us out of existence and back into a new realm, finally the one that we’re stopping at. We get to the lowering ramp without wasting any time.

“What do you think we’ll find here?” Vii asks, peaking out the windows and into the thick mists that surround the ship.

“Whatever it is, I hope it’s enough to let Eshya stretch her legs. It seems too cruel if this world is nothing but a massive petting zoo of soft bunnies and friendly bears. That reminds me we need to go find Fluffy Butt, I haven’t seen her in too long.”

“Just because something is cute, doesn’t make it harmless,” Adler says firmly.

“Case in point, me,” I say, waving at myself and standing straight and pretending that I have a stick shoved up my behind. It’s rather hard on my back. I wonder how anyone can live like this.

“You know, saying that loses you a few points of cuteness,” Eshya jabs back, bouncing on her heels as she peers through the mists for something worth hunting. The white veil hangs thick over the land, hiding anything and everything from view. The watery port only proves its existence through the splashing of waves against the ship’s hull.

“We’re keeping score? Who’s winning?”

“Do you really want to know?” Eshya asks.

“Actually, no. It’s clearly rigged, my votes weren’t counted invalidating the entire process.”

“It isn’t a democracy, but I openly accept bribes if you want to get back those points you lost,” Eshya chuckles, stepping off of the lowering ramp before it even fully reaches land. Vii flies after her with a little more caution, leaving Adler and I to wait for it to lower.

“You’re not jumping after them?” Adler asks.

“I’m a mature young woman, I wouldn’t do something so undignified,” I reply with a feigned huff. “Besides, I can’t leave you here on your own, surrounded by hungry beasts.”

“Where are these beasts?”

“All around you, surely you noticed all those ravenous eyes gazing at you back inside the ship. You’re too attractive for your own good.”

“I think you may have been seeing things that were not entirely real,” Adler’s carefully spoken words are those of a proper diplomat.

“Oh, I can guarantee that there was at least one person there, staring at you with perverted thoughts.”

“You don’t count,” her voice is dry even though the air is moist.

“I was talking about Vii,” I say, “She’s quiet about it, but she’s quite the pervert don’t you know.”

“You’re lying,” Adler’s glare settles on me as she tries to see through some great lie, but I have no deception to defend.

“Guys, you’ve already hit land,” Vii shouts, waving us through the mist. “What are you doing just standing there?”

“Nothing!” Adler squeaks, hopping a step forward and off the ship.

“It’s hard to see, but this rocky island is sort of floating, sort of not. I think the village is this way, there’s a sign marked into the ground.” Vii says, leading us along the island as the ship lifts off behind us.

The stone is hard underfoot, and while it’s coarse and good for gripping keeping us from sliding down the slope, there’s no soil or earth to be seen here. No trees or plants rise out of the mists, just more of this rocky horizon ahead of us, and the lapping waters behind.

“Up here, I’ve found the door,” Eshya says, waving us up to her side as she stares down into a hole in the ground. The sloped path inside seems at an odd angle, curving up on the side at an increasingly harsh angle, but there is still a part of it flat enough to walk down safely.

The tunnels inside are heavy with cold moisture but the mists themselves are gone, unwelcome in these depths. Ironically, we can see further while underground than on the surface.

Warm lights ahead glow in a light green hue, discolouring everything around us. Cautiously walking into the light, we take our first steps into the city hidden inside the stone.

Everything here is built around a series of sloped roads all in perfect parallel, and all dropping off to a dangerous fall on either end, though there are steps and ladders there for us to go down if we want. The many empty spaces here and there prove that there’s more of the thriving city below our feet.

Shops and homes fill up more space than I’d expect, but there’s a strange design to them, with doors and windows much too high up for anyone to reach normally. They don’t seem designed for fliers, there are no landing pads or perches, but instead seem to expect their visitors to be walking along the ceiling.

It makes more sense when I see the locals.

They’re slugs, or at least very slug-like. The people here are rather unusual examples of beings that have strayed far from the elvish form. If only they didn’t try to imitate the elves they’d be half as horrifying. As if monsters from some horror film, a good two-thirds of the slugs look like they’re halfway through devouring an elf. An arm hanging out here, a leg dragging along the ground there, and an elvish head growing where their slug-like head ought to be.

I’ve never seen elvish features applied to creatures at quite this disturbing a capacity. Even as I watch, one of the elvish heads pops inside a sluglike body, before squeezing back out again like a grown man being birthed by a mucous drenched monster.

“Hello! Welcome! I’m Gehnna, it’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Sliding on up to us is a young woman who is thankfully not quite as disturbing as the rest of her kind. She’s elvish from head to waist, and her mucous covered, greenish body expands out from there like an overlarge skirt made of moist flesh.

The more elvish parts of her are dark of skin and eerily beautiful. Her sharp nose and jawline are softened by the smile on her lips and the shine in her deep blue eyes. She wears only a binding cloth around her chest, but I guess that clothes could be bothersome for a species naturally covered in mucous at all times.

“Hello, we are here for a quest. You have a problem with missing people in the tunnels?” I ask. After a moment of taking in the sight of them, it’s easy enough to force into the back of my mind. It might be the sort of scene that would have given Lovecraft inspiration for a new novel, but I’ve seen uglier, and more disturbing things already.

“Oh, that worrisome incident?” She waves us off, shaking her head lightly as if we’re talking about some half-forgotten joke. “That’s not an issue anymore. They all came back to us safely, we’re better than ever now.”

“They came back?” Eshya asks, “You called for help, so it’s not like they were gone for an afternoon, and there was more than one disappearance. How did they just all come back?”

“Well, that’s quite the discussion, but to put it in as few words as possible… there was a little bit of a mistake, people got confused and they panicked, and thinking the worst had happened they called for help. It’s all dealt with now; everything is fine here as you can see. You don’t need to worry about anything at all.”

“If you say so,” I reply, hesitant to trust her. She’s different from the rest of the people in the street, more than just her elvish features, and while she seems excited and cheerful, there’s an edge to her. She twitches now and again, her smile dipping before returning with increased fervour. I can’t get a read on her at all, even after planting my Skill on her and trying to peer into her mind.

I glare at Eshya.

“Good pick on this job.”

“I had a feeling about this quest,” She says with a shrug, her hand running along her sword hilt again. I swear if she keeps doing that, she’ll wear the thing down to a nub.

“Feel free to stay here as long as you like,” Gehnna says, waving us towards the deeper city. “We’re still in night rotation, but the morning will be here soon and there are some wonderful pancakes that Naima cooks, I’m sure you’ll love them too.

“Is there anything you want to see? I can show you around if you’d like?” Her smile doesn’t ever fully slip as she tries to entice us into the city of stone.

The locals, while quite the unsightly lot, aren’t as present-minded as I’d expect of a people capable of building such a city. They slide and stumble here and there, some walking headfirst into walls. They hide elvish features inside their squishy bodies just to have them pop back out randomly.

“See here, this is our arena,” Gehnna says, widening her smile. “We play all sorts of games and sports in here, and it can be wonderfully thrilling. There aren’t any games on at the moment, but if you stay here, I’m sure you’ll want to watch and play. Oh, and over there is where you’ll be staying, it’s upside down right now so uh… we might have to wait if you can’t climb the walls.”

“Can you show us to the people who came back?” Adler asks. “The ones who went missing. It would be for the best if we saw them for ourselves to make sure that our quest is finished.”

“I… I don’t think that would be any good,” Gehnna says, turning her back to us and slowly leading us down the road, “They’re not well. They’ll get better! It’s not like they’re dying or anything, but it’s safer for everyone if you don’t interfere.”

“Do you know when they’ll be better; when we can talk to them?” I ask, “Our ship will be returning in about a week, so we can wait a few days if that changes things.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Her voice cuts quickly through any hope of pressing the point. “They’re fine, it’s just not safe to see them right now.”

“You can’t tell us what happened to them?” I ask.

“I… I can show you,” She says, turning back to us again, her lips twitching into an uneven smile though her eyes drop to the ground at her feet, and the trail of slime she’s left behind. “We’re having a pilgrimage in a few days, you can come with us if you’re curious.”

“A pilgrimage?” Adler asks. I’m not certain that religion is against the rules, but I’m willing to guess that it is.

“It’s nothing bad,” Gehnna replies quickly. “You’ll see. Please, come with us and make up your own minds after you experience it.”

“Where does this pilgrimage go?” I ask.

“Down, we travel down to the depths of this world. It’s a safe path, I made sure of it and… please come with us.”

“We’ll think about it,” I say backing away from her and looking up at the home she’s pointed us to.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 42,391 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 21,073 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)