Drinking Doubt Dry - SCP Foundation

« Previous Tale | Swords unto Scramjets | Next Tale »

And brave Ynggra strode upon salt flats

wretched, repugnant

brand baleful and foes teeming

milksoft sod begging the plow

Heavensent shadows tread the crater path

fragile, feckless

star waning and fathers fled

cowed by might most ancient

—Autotranslation of Fragment 316.A1

Mealworm followed a goat trail out of the overgrowth strangling remnants of countless imperial ambitions. To tame that inhumane land. To memorialize glory everlasting. Remnants of pillars, staircases, and balconies jutted from Cherin's Hubris—those close-packed spires that rose as though extruded from continental heartland in defiance of geology as understood by mortal minds. She moved from this brick to that banister, then edged along a weathered mural depicting war against monstrous figures: trolls and giants bravely combating divinities who descended to reclaim the world for themselves. Aster surely would have liked to join that fray herself, blasting flesh from reliquary bones and crushing demigods until ambrosia ran from mangled forms.

Between those remnants were a scant few footholds formed more by chance than anything else. Although her heart nearly stopped there when first escaping the land's predators, it now barely brushed the slumbering mass curled near. Of course Mealworm could manage, pack or no. Of course her boots landed true and her hands never slipped from rain-slick stones. This land of cast-offs was welcoming its prodigal daughter home with open arms. After all, who had ever been banished further from what they knew best—not only Earthside lands, but Earthside grudges deep ingrained.

Scraggly trees still found spots to root along that path. Pebbles fell into the canopy below, lush waves rippling in place as winds combed through. When passed, all manner of surprised insects burst from their nests despite predators sweeping past on larger wings. Still she climbed, crevice to crevice, foothold to foothold, until the sun began setting and megafauna who dwelt in hollows of their own stirred anew. No amount of care from the land could outweigh its inhabitants' hunger, which drove muzzles into the ruined corridor where she sheltered. There was nothing to do beyond clutch the heatstone to her chest while avoiding any flicks from that blue-stained tongue. Perhaps it was even the same maw that swallowed Pigeon, Mudfish, Pillbug, and the rest with how curious it found her scent.

"Were they tasty?" she asked through the waves of petrichor-infused breath sweeping through her shelter. "We better have given you heartburn with how many chemicals got pumped inside."

The snout, being far removed from any ears to hear or brain to comprehend, simply nickered.

"Maybe I'll find some leftovers if you eat me next. Maybe there's a whole cache left in there."

Its tongue lapped out even farther, peeling away moss and wetting dust as taste buds searched statues for any hidden crevices hiding grubs. All the while, she stared down the sliver of gullet exposed between ebon teeth.

"You're lucky the war never sparked right. These kings and queens probably think they escaped the worst of it, but their whole board barely fills a square on ours, and they're barely pawns on it too. That's why the Foundation left so easily. Not even worth burning everything down."

More nickering. More drool running through matted tendrils of fur.

"I'd love to watch you swallow a .206 from one of our pieces."

The massive creature huffed, finally withdrawing its tongue from near her soles. Strands of drool dripped from the ceiling as the muzzle withdrew in turn, pattering down as that massive head turned to expose one of many eyes through the cavernmouth. Although clouds gathered close as ever, moonlight yet shone in that ocean-deep pupil, captured from when it last rose unrestricted over those lands. Focusing slow, blinker slower, a droning howl sounded outside that shook the spire to its core—the sorrow that all such creatures carried within their chests, passed down through generations until it formed genes of its own. Again, she howled back, and again it wandered away with footsteps far too light for its mass. Convergent evolution could follow a great many paths before those branches met.

"Blow your head clean off," said Mealworm with a yawn that slid into truer sleep than usual.

The higher she climbed Cherin's Hubris, the better preserved its remnants became. From human disasters (jungle-strangled), to elvish folly (fragile for all its supposed beauty), to orkish imitations of troll-sculpted grandeur where hand-crafted tiles still kept some walkways dry. When high enough that the valleys below were hazy, crossing between each peak seemed a perilous proposition indeed; structures that had lasted for centuries already would endure though. What had tolerated her last passage could stand another even as it trembled. Probably.

Walkway led to staircase led to an open-air bridge broad enough to fit one of Aster's PACER units. Birds below. Drakes above. Engraved posts rose from each support, runes layered upon runes with a density suited to the Foundation's most voracious analyst cells. The magicks that offered shelter as Mealworm crossed a valley yawning wider than most would have been invisible had the rain not followed orderly channels, keeping flagstones dry for longer than some kingdoms stood. Tomes in the world below spoke of the Gotyr Dynasty as being hungry for treasure stripped from the lands below, gilding entire mountainsides after carving them into kingly likenesses, then setting to work with silver—as grave an example of mirror imaging as any tealbox's output. All too apt was Morget the Everwise musing about past glory from her decrepit academy in Skardoss. And who did Kalent Truesight think he was fooling with that appellation?

Yes, those frauds were exposed by the city necessitating such a massive bridge. The Cairn stood between walls whose only notable feature was how many quarries its stonework hailed from; no defenses were necessary to stave off foes, nor monuments to awe visitors. Three- and four-story structures rose in higher rings behind them, each large by lowland standards but by no means enormous compared to Earthside cities. Of course, it needed not pretend at grandeur when every visitor's eye was instead drawn to the singular mass of stone suspended above it. Architects had cored straight through the spire to raise their people's living tomb, keeping aloft however much vertical mass rose into the clouds via sorceries similar to those keeping its entrance dry. It was a city shrouded in shadow but spared damp. A capital free of rulers and subjects both. Absent guards too, as none confronted Mealworm once she finished crossing the bridge to stand before a gateway whose two solid halves were impossible to shift without machinery or magic. Veins shooting through each pale slab gave the impression of growths intruding from within, and each, thankfully, was parted just enough for her to squeeze through.

Mealworm's last entry had been tinged by desperation, chased all the way into those peaks by pursuers whose own sacrifices would be made pointless if they relented. She fought them off one by one in ever more desperate struggles—spending precious ammunition to core craniums, then hurling heavy rocks at switchbacks, then wrestling them to precipices where tumbling over allowed too much time for reflection before impact. A few chased her battered form inside even so. More than shadow had watched those streets, every building's pleasant geometries infested with the ghosts of a people who passed peacefully but nonetheless resented the world for continuing to spin. Such was that hunt's audience, knowing well an urban labyrinth stripped of all its clamor; such was the quiet on her current stroll that sounds from those feral nights seemed to echo yet. Howls followed across blocks overlooked by balconies and decorated by abstract statues. Here was the skeleton of a market where stalls held only dust. There were the sunless gardens which now snarled neighboring structures in bulbs, swaying fills, and hungry traps. No surfaces throughout allowed water to pool or rot to spread. It was a city dying as it lived, built by an empire that died as it lived, which once stood astride a continent insistent on following the same path of consolidation and stagnation.

She found the sole inhabited building on a street whose name was lost in dead language. Squat, one-story brickwork was crowded on three sides by more impressive neighbors, which seemed to have claimed the roof as a garden in centuries past. Fronds had escaped confinement at some point, drooping low enough to be singed by the lantern over its doorway. As with most structures there, the entrance was a good four or five feet taller than necessary for human comfort, but the hinges were still oiled enough that opening it didn't require equal strength.

The dim tavern barely fit within its exterior. Shelves of bottles both smooth and pebbled clung to one wall, holding liquids amber, ocher, plum, and clear. Swords displayed opposite looked too outlandish for use. A bar ran its length between those displays, top sculpted from a single slab of granite, which rose over Mealworm's head until she climbed one of many empty stools to better regard the tender.

Crocodile-headed where he wasn't fur-shrouded. Hulking yet graceful, toothy but tranquil, sitting in the presence of the last living troll was no minor experience. Such was his presence that she felt the need to straighten her hair (too short for fiddling) and adjust her insignia (gone alongside tattered jumpsuits). Claws wiped a rag across the bartop as clear, pale eyes focused upon her, motion repeated so many times that gray stone shone like a mirror.

"Senses say there's a tale to tell," said Kieh Teh Kor Rang. Each vocal cord predated the common language by spans better left to historians, but they sounded no harsher for it. "I wonder what drove feet fleeing anew, an escape absent sweat or stress."

Without looking at the bottles splayed out behind him, Kieh's free hand snagged one in particular—square body, square opening, full of off-pink fluid that preserved a few bobbing eyes that still trailed nerves. Troll liquor at its finest, but were the eyes of a similar vintage? Mealworm squinted at them as a trickle of alcohol flowed into two glass thimbles. Well, it seemed unlikely that any former owners would seek them out. With a toast, a nod, and a quick gulp, she downed alcohol whose intensity far surpassed vodka. Worse than fire. Worse than magma. This was a cocktail better suited to chemotherapy, obliterating weak cells and weaker organisms in its race down her gullet. That slumbering mass in her ribcage squirmed away from every drop, forcing coughs free no matter how hard she beat a fist there.

After it finally settled, Mealworm wiped the back of her lips with one hand and felt both burn. "Yeah, I've got an even better story for you than last time. Just don't complain about the ending again."

"Is it irregular in otherworldly affairs to spit swallowed poison?" asked Kieh after several hours spent recounting the decade since their paths last crossed. Since her path crossed his post, at least. A few lanterns had dimmed in the process, leaving them in a puddle of light surrounded by the uniform grayness that reigned without clear night or day.

"Izzit about drinks again?" she said after a sip of water. This troll was surely the only bartender on either world who wouldn't let his customers get drunk, but then again, he just as surely was the only one to refuse payment in coin. "Figure everyone spits what they can't stomach."

"And stomachs sense when their limit approaches."

"Y'don't have to tell me about limits, alright? I came to give up the bastard sword like I promised way back when. Bastard… bastard-sword. Nobody knows better that it's bad for me."

Claws raked through pale fur as Kieh considered Mealworm's sternum in between her vigorous taps. With each strike of finger against bone, the mass roiled within, clearly roused from slumber by her imbibing and none the happier for it. "Then again, poison possesses its own pleasantries when survived."

"I don't do booze philosophy."

"But of poisons?"

"Like you were saying: same difference, different dose." Her tapping continued, each hollow thud expressing just how much had been scraped from inside. "Even if my body wasn't at its limit, my options sure are. Wizards and witch-queens, armies, hunters, probably assassins outright, old friends, new enemies… they all probably have my number by now. Guess I picked a fight without enough backup."

"Was it not a worry at the onset? One weapon cannot upend warfare without prickling all who practice it."

"We've got more back home that woulda done that too. I just messed up. Should've planned it better or done better. Should've killed Gregor instead of listening like a good lapdog."

The bartender looked askance at TAPEWORM TANGIBLE, which balanced atop the stool next to her. Its scabbard remained indistinct, immaterial, seeming to fuzz through solid surfaces in rejection of this realm it had been abandoned in. Plenty could relate to that sentiment, though far fewer after her failed assault on Mt. Perfidy. Near-invisible arcs of static escaped its confinement, only to fizzle away under stifling reality. "Arrows are fated to fly once notched. Having flown far, there is no ready method of return."

"Not without hiking out onto the range and pulling it out. The Foundation really missed their mark with me, huh? Didn't even bother trying."

"Have you struck true already? To tree or target, to aught capable of foiling flight?"

"Feeling pretty struck overall, won't lie." She gulped down the last of her water instead. No number of mouthfuls could dilute that first shot to an endurable degree, but at least it seemed to spread better; not just sizzling in her reinforced stomach—although bioengineering may well have prevented a hole from burning through—but forcing it through other organs and valves, through veins and nodes, all in ways that liquids shouldn't properly move through a body.

More water followed. Into glass, down throat. Into glass, down throat. Mealworm stumbled off into darkness to find a bathroom that was blessedly trench-based instead of anything climbable, and by the time she returned, more water was waiting for her. Why was it that taverns so thoroughly plagued her journey through this world? So often did Alpha-85 muster at them before setting out. So cozily did her plans later gestate there. It certainly wasn't a fondness for drink, though now that she unwound her internal coil for the first time in years, the buzz was not objectionable, nor was the warmth spreading within.

Kieh scratched at his nape again after cleaning a mug fit for even larger paws. One claw then gestured for her to turn on the stool, reaching past her cheek to point at swords hung on the tavern's back wall. Most were legendary, at least in the sense that only figures of fiction were able to wield slabs that immense. With such weapons, warriors could stride through enemy ranks, cleaving in one direction before swiping to the other—sending blood aspray from severed necks while other streams gushed down fullers. Not that she would harbor such dreams as a creature of the trench, of the fireteam. That she fused herself with a magic sword meant less than nothing when aspiring to the CALO-AX's trigger.

"I have heralded heroes aplenty from this perch," said Kieh. He swept across crude swords, past gilded wonders, without even lingering on those crafted from solid gemstones or grown whole from blessed oldgrowth. "Gotyr Iga Ynggra first fought with Slay Death Dead on the flats where demons now desiccate. Crude craftsmanship, ill-mined iron. Killian Claine forged Nevertire Neverwane from his battles' broken blades. Symbolism over substance. Tyra'nol the Nightedge, Nightedge. Elves ever confuse emptiness for elegance."

"I don't really do sword history either."

"Pellanora. Cirol of the South. Karang Kingeater. Cirol of the North. One Last Song. The Toothblade. Ruby's End. Faithmade. Appellations known and forgotten, all wielding weapons carrying some chance power, but those heroes were forced to find footing here nonetheless—exile and exploration branched only by intent. Yet on flew their arrows afterwards. On went travels, travails, despite drowning sorrows here."

"Did any of them have something awful nesting inside their chest? Look, I get what you're saying, but wherever my 'arrow' is flying, it won't stay airborne for long. I'm just here to appreciate this place properly, turn over TAPEWORM TANGIBLE, and–"

Even the stim's preternatural awareness might not have saved Mealworm from a claw plowing through her back. She saw it before feeling it—one ancient digit bursting through her sternum in yet another betrayal from an unexpected source. Yet, it wasn't pain that raced through her while weakly fumbling for any weapon. Wasn't her pain. The mass inside screamed at a frequency that reverberated through nerves now suffused with whatever concoction had been provided; it bulged, twisted, writhed, suddenly finding itself trapped on all sides. That fit sent Mealworm crashing to the floor, clawing at her chest in an attempt to open an escape path, but there was none to be had. She herself writhed. Convulsed as a container must. It smashed itself hard enough against heart and lungs that beating and breathing seemed impossible, unable to hold together in an environment made toxic.

The first bout of vomiting came worst, but only because she had yet to experience the second or third. Heaving hard enough to crack ribs failed to speed that substance out. Although feeling like tar, it emerged pale and opalescent—parasitic sludge that shimmered in lantern light as it spread across the stonework. There was a semblance of life to it even once expelled, attempting to coagulate, to reform into its most innocent shape. Could a tumor roll over to expose its soft underbelly? It certainly tried.

"You didn't need to do that," she said at last, which approximated 'thanks' as closely as anybody was liable to hear.

"Stories sliced short hold less appeal after seeing so many. You brought the weapon I sought, finding fuel too, and you will walk with one in turn. A tool tempered for trials. Find what is forsaken by a world when rivers halt their course."

"I think you're expecting too much. I'm just a–"

WORM came an electrostatic shriek from outside that made bottles clink in place. It was not unlike Aster's war-speakers, though these were clearly distinct—less majestic, more marauder. Sighing, she turned from the bartender to his blades and reached for one handle. Time to see what other hunters her presence had summoned.

« Previous Tale | Swords unto Scramjets | Next Tale »

Footnotes

1. Taken under Foundation care during the Sack of Chinche