Drip-Fed – All but Forsaken 2 – Rationality (Patreon)

Why the tail?

A Deathhound was a creature that was simultaneously complicated and extremely simple. As the near-peak of demonic evolution, it was defined by its ability to survive and thrive in the Hellroots.

Regular lifeforms were defined by their ability to acquire sustenance. Although bears and wolves were impressive beings, particularly to sapient eyes, it was a matter of fact that mice were more successful from an objective perspective. They were higher in numbers, more adaptable, and could survive through resource shortages due to their diminutive size. It may not have looked like it, but when it came to thriving, mice would be superior to wolves. On the Leaves, the passage of time selected for the mutations, god-induced or natural, not for what being fought the best but whose versatility allowed them to best cope with or exploit their environment. It was the mistake of many a young god, to place a leviathan in their oceans, without the necessary food to sustain it.

In the Hellroots, the question of sustenance did not exist. All demons whose Sparks were not consumed would be reborn in the spawning pods of their kind. As such, what drove the development of demons was the ability to kill those Parasytes capable of annihilating them down to the soul. Although that only told half of the story. Demons also evolved through the ability to exploit the world above for power, to harvest the Leaves when they were summoned to them and bring that power with them when they went back down. It was for this reason that demons were horrors to the mortals that they were created to protect. For their own survival, demons were incentivized to flail skin, eat marrow from living bone, and taste every emotion of the sapient beings of the Omniverse.

Their cruelty was driven as much by their wish to survive as their envious bitterness.

In the end, both the exploitation of the inhabitants of the Leaves and the combat against the accursed Parasytes made demons organisms whose only concern was fighting effectiveness. Their organs did not need to make sense. Stomach, teeth, tongues, eyes, claws, limbs, down to the very shape of their bodies, all of those just existed to facilitate their ability to deal as much damage as possible, while taking only as much as their supercharged regenerative abilities could deal with.

Which presented an issue to Apexus, when he had understood that Turlesh’s body had little of worth to offer him.

The Deathhound was a mountain of muscle fibres and bones. His nervous system was a fascinating structure. The equivalent of the brain was a thin strip running through the length of the head, but the rest of the body’s nervous system was more developed than in any regular humanoid. Blood was not pumped by a heart. It simply existed between muscle fibres, existing primarily as a healing and heat-distribution agent. The bones were designed with maximum surface area in mind, to give the extensive muscle fibres space to latch onto.

In terms of internal organs, a Deathhound possessed very little. The ‘stomach’ that sat beyond the throat existed only to temporarily hold what little organic matter the creature actually swallowed and extract the magic from it. Because Deathhounds were so far up the hierarchy of demons, they had since lost most of the tools their lesser kin had to mass harvest weaker adventurers. There just was no point for them. Their only hope to step into the realm of Unreavs, if they even desired that, was through the direct feeding of mana by powerful warlocks or the devouring of select, incredibly powerful adventurers and Parasytes.

Consequently, for a being that acquired the biological components of other beings, a being that had very little in terms of biological components left little to choose from. There were muscles, which Apexus already had, regenerative blood, which Apexus effectively already had, acidic saliva and additional limbs. The acidic saliva was a minor benefit and against Apexus’ fundamental interest of dissolving things within him. That effectively left him with the selection of additional arms and the tail.

It had not been an easy choice. The pair of additional arms could have been hidden within his current arms when they weren’t needed, to be separated out when he entered combat. This was inefficient and could take several minutes of muscle rerouting, but it could be done. That was, if he wanted to hide the extra arms in the first place.

What persuaded Apexus to go with the tail instead was, one, the lack of that potential drawback. Two, as convenient as additional arms fundamentally were, they would put his centre of gravity much higher, which made kicking and keeping his balance more difficult. Three, the tail of a Deathhound was remarkably strong, long, and prehensile. It was not that different from having a longer, more flexible arm to guard his back with. Something doubly valuable since he had wings to guard. Which led into the fourth reason: a tail would help shift his balance in the air.

In totality, the tail was just more useful and unique than the arms were. A disappointing revelation for the slime at the time. A being that impactful for his life, he had expected to provide a more impressive part to his physique. In the end, Apexus settled with it and disregarded that disappointment. Even if it was not incredible, the tail addressed a weakness and so it was of utility.

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The party stood before the Stem.

The exact size of the silver pathway differed from Leaf to Leaf, scaling with the amount of traffic it saw. The Omniverse was a cosmic organism in its own way, the gods and mortals part of its extensive immune system and neural network. Impulses as simple as ants following pheromone trails let it direct its power flow to where it was necessary. The might of the Omniverse was all that those that were could use. Unlike those that were not, the Omniverse was not infinite. Not in the definitive sense, anyway. In the writings of a mathematician, its scale and power would best be described as a growing infinity. In temporal reality, when observed at an exact point, by a mind capable of perceiving all within, the world tree would be a definite quantity.

The Stem the party looked at was less than five metres wide. Broad, by common metrics, but when left and right of it the darkness of the woefully awake nothing sprawled out it looked tiny. The gargantuan Leaf at the end of it did not do the scale any favours either. It was the barest minimum to which a Stem could shrink. Even if it was unvisited, the Omniverse would not part with one of its Leaves willingly. Fall had never come to this tree.

Apexus led the way, the firmness of the Stem under his naked feet. It was close to the wooden bases of regular leaves, flexible yet hard. The slowly shifting pathways of interwoven magic gave it a stringy texture.

Aclysia and Korith were right behind him, grabbing onto his arms and eying the edge of the Stem, fearing it could narrow in on them in an instant and send them dropping like the dying Leaf still visible in the distance. To appease them, Apexus slowed down and continued with careful steps.

Reysha ran right up to the edge of the cylindrical shape. “Y’all are bitches!” she shouted, walking at a diagonal angle. The Omniverse did not care for the common understanding of gravity, even now. “The only one of us that could even try to leap off is the big man! Want to try that?”

Apexus was about to deliver his denial, when a motion in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned his head to the tumbling Leaf in the distance. The fraying, doomed world, draining of light on its descent into becoming one with the primordial void. He looked at the Leaf and the nothing around it.

And the abyss looked back.

An infinitesimal mouth formed in Apexus’ field of view. A refraction of light only existing to him, an attempt of his mind to give form to the vast entity that was defined out of the nothingness for the stretch of time it took for it to open and then swallow the Leaf hole. In one terrible moment, the screaming of the Leaf, the deception of his mind was extinguished once and for all.

Aclysia took a sobbing breath and slowly collapsed to her knees. Tears streamed down her face. The imprint of the tendrils and teeth were still in her retina, of flower petals forged into blades by malevolence. The image that existed only for her rationality’s sake. Korith swallowed hard, Reysha was on the border of hyperventilating.

“Don’t,” she pressed out. “Don’t try!”

“I will not,” Apexus responded, sounding calmer than he was. It was his duty, as a Monk and leader of the group, to stay in control of all he felt. “That entity, it cannot reach us here,” he attempted to calm them with reason.

It would have worked, had there not been a cry from the void. The previously imagined creature peeled out of the darkness. Features tore out of the infinite backdrop, getting torn together. Against its birth, the Parasyte struggled. Black hairs wove together into black, matted fur, that shimmered maliciously in the silver light of the Omniverse. An elongated body, like that of a serpent, with half-flowers laying flat along its spine. A cleft jaw, permanently parted. Teeth of unsteady size, smooth as chitin.

The creature roared with endless aggression and swam towards the branch. The motion was juvenile, inelegant, hateful and misguided. It dropped, affected by new forces it had never had to contend with, and sunk towards the Hellroots.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” Reysha screamed. The humanoid chimera would not have put it as loudly or brashly, but he fully agreed with the spirit of the question.

“I-i-i-i-it was defined,” Korith stammered. “Di-did you not learn about that?”

“No?!”

Aclysia took several deep breaths, seeking solace from the loss in knowledge to share. “What we possess above the Parasytes is our reason,” she stated. “The primordial void wishes to see us undone, because we are and it is not. In the process of being, we define it and it hates being. Whenever the acts of the void are witnessed, we attempt to understand how it could occur. In the act of witnessing, through the act of rationality, we define a part of the void and thus separate it from the whole.” Hatefully, Aclysia stared outwards. “Perhaps, eventually, the Omniverse will be capable of rationalizing the entire void into a tamed state.”

“If it hates being rationalized so much, why act where it can be witnessed?” Apexus asked.

“I do not believe the primordial void is capable of learning,” Aclysia responded. “To possess or lack knowledge is to have defining characteristics. The void knows everything. The void knows nothing. It acts when it does. So, the theory that is imparted to me.” The angel closed her eyes, to close her heart off from the loss and the anger. “None of us could ever know for sure.”

“And what happens to it now?” Reysha was right next to the group again, unwilling to be any closer to the darkness than to them.

“Another enemy for the demons,” Apexus theorized and was not corrected. “Their bitterness grows more understandable the more I learn about the world.”

“Yet how to address it?” Aclysia asked in a hollow tone.

Apexus had no answer to that. He helped his beloved to her feet.  The events outside their control had passed. All they could do was concentrate on what they were capable of achieving, starting with putting one foot in front of the other.

The many facets of the new Leaf before them reflected the nature of the world. There was water, plenty of water, with islands dispersed throughout more numerous than on any Leaf they had been previously. A world not of continents but of a great many small landmasses in clusters and isolated equally. An archipelago a world across. Then, the facets slowly faded, the silver and black of the Omniverse replaced with the clouded sky of the Leaf.

“Fuck, I think we have some rotten luck today,” Reysha groaned.

Raindrops fell on them, and thunder cracked. A grey curtain hung thick over a landscape of buildings. Even obscured by the rain, Apexus and Reysha could make out the dilapidated state of the empty buildings before them. There was a city there, like there had been at every Stem they had visited so far, and it was devoid of any visible activities. No lights, not a single person hushing through the streets, and no guard to stop them when they ran to find shelter underneath an arch, damaged by the elements.

“I don’t know what’s worse, the existential fucking dread or THIS THUNDER!” Reysha shouted against the rumble that followed the illumination.

Korith started to laugh. “That you even think… there’s a comparison… you’re… such a silly cat…!” she pressed out between giggles, then suddenly stopped. “W-was that mean?”

“Dunno, don’t care, tiddy lizard.” Reysha smirked and ran a hand through her drenched hair.

Aclysia gazed at the sky. “I doubt that this will clear within the next few hours. May I suggest we wait out the weather in the confines of our retreat?”