BabaVader
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Chapter 310 Corruption
🕑 Added 2023-03-11 20:15:43 +0000 UTCAuthor's note:
Here it is!
A little later than expected but I honestly just was a little lazy. Rest is important. I also found a new place to stay and I'm going to move there in a week. And I wrote some more Pokémon. I'll put up another chapter of that with the next Owl chapter. Which already has over 300 words.
Anyway, enjoy the chapter!
Cheers!
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Content Warning: Disturbing Monster (don't read while eating)
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It took another two hours to reach the structures. I could see what it was earlier than that, of course. Broken corners and walls stood patterned in a somewhat orderly grid covered in taint. Here and there something moved but it was not much different from before. No tainted human zombies running around. Yet.
The former city covered a decently large area. A few square kilometres as far as I could tell. It was built on a river that, like everything else, was tinted purple. I spent some time scouting from above, trying to spot anything that had survived the destruction but other than tainted rubble nothing interesting was there. Even in the largest outlines, I found only crumbling metal and rocks. Anything that was paper had likely been completely ruined.
The city had three gates, from what it looked like. Because three roads went off in different directions. The one I had come from in the northeast, and the other two towards the south and west respectively. I decided to fly a little higher and scan the horizon. Towards the south, the land flattened from the hills. Here or there I could see the remains of small structures that might have been farms. West led to a purple forest before a large body of water opened up. Most likely there would be another city there but nothing I could see from here.
“We might need to sacrifice this body”, I said, “There’s a lot to explore.”
“I can see the reasoning but you should hold onto it for a little longer”, Catori said, “We can always plan a suicide mission later.”
“Right. Did you spot anything in the city you want to have a closer look at?”
“Not from up here. There might be a basement somewhere that has something interesting but the risk is too high for our first trip. I say we check if there’s another city near the lake. Or ocean. Whatever it is.”
“Right, let’s do that. I’ll get a little more rest, first.”
“Stay alert.”
I nodded and looked for a suitable ruin to land on. The highest point still standing was my best option. It looked like it had been some sort of church or religious building. A nearly square layout with what looked like the remains of an arching gate on one side. Some of the walls were still standing and one of them was large enough that I could make out most of the outline of a large window with a pointed tip. Whatever they prayed to was probably long gone. There was no node in the area so they most likely had not worshipped Truth. Maybe they were anti-thaumaturgy? Some sort of witch-hunt leading to a thaumaturge with nothing to lose could have caused the taint.
I stopped myself before my fantasy ran too wild. There were no clues for anything, really. If the walls had carvings telling of their beliefs, they were long worn down. No writings, no images, not even an idol of their god. Nothing was left. And while I had read a lot of journals in the dwarven libraries, I was far from an expert in archaeology.
I spent a full 20 minutes resting before anything happened. Again, it was a swarm of tainted insects. This time, they were not released right in front of me but simply drifted by. I heard them coming, of course. As soon as they got within 25 metres, the swarm changed from a lazy drift to an angry buzzing and shot towards me. I immediately took off and got distance. It seemed they lost track from further away once they spotted something non-tainted. With a crude estimate, about a hundred metres or so was where they started to slow down and return to drifting.
I was really curious what all these tainted animals were eating. With how few of them there were, they could only sustain on the tainted fibres and tentacles. Maybe that was a self-fulfilling cycle? A tainted animal would eat tainted food and reinforce the infection. Maybe I could isolate one in the silverwood forest.
Since I was in the air again, I turned towards the body of water. It soon became obvious that it was more of a lake than an ocean. The other shore was barely visible from my height. At ground level, you might not be able to see it standing directly next to the water. There was also a huge node glowing in the middle of it. It was dispersing pink water and creating a rather stable wave pattern all over the lake. I was wondering why I only saw the one node until now but it soon became obvious that I just had not seen the smaller ones. They were all glowing purple in front of purple ground. From this distance, the meagre senses of this body were unable to detect them unless I paid very close attention. Or the node was large enough.
As I got closer to the lake, a small clearing with more rubble came into view right on the shore. A lone pillar of tainted wood stood as a reminder of a once-thriving fishing village. Just as I was trying to figure out why such a huge body of water had such a small town next to it, I saw something on the other side of the lake. There were structures there. Large ones, going by the size of the remains. I knew now where I really had to explore.
Without stopping at the village, I kept flying. My eyes were mostly focused on the water, almost expecting some huge monster living inside and guarding the node. I did see a few shadows beneath the surface but nothing showed itself. So when I looked up again after passing almost two-thirds of the lake, I was caught by surprise. There were actual buildings still standing there.
Or rather, there were structures large enough to be decent mansions now. They were still rubble but they were very large rubble. The city was at least one order of magnitude bigger than the first one I had seen. I could not make out the other end of it from where I was. It was clearly centred on the shore with a large area of it showing the remains of structures. Docks, shipyards, markets, warehouses. Everything a port needed. What once reached over the water was now gone but small parts still extended from the shore.
A few hundred metres in, a large compound was still walled off. The buildings in there looked slightly more stable with at least some parts of the roofs still there. Most of those were gold. It seemed to have escaped some of the taint or at least not be changed as drastically as other materials. It had clearly been a palace and a canal had been built to go right into the large courtyard. And the most surprising thing was a hatch leading underground that was still solid. It was not the only basement but the only one still closed off.
“Should we check that out?”, I asked.
“I say be careful but try to open it”, Catori said, “It’s probably stuck but if we can get inside, we might find more than destruction.”
“Okay. See anything dangerous?”
She took a moment before answering in the negative. I got the impression she had been looking around her screen on the other side.
“I’m going down.”
The room with the closed basement hatch was entirely nondescript, even after ages of taint running over it. It was clear there had never been anything in it. Sure, there was fibrous taint all over the ground but no tentacles and no crumbled wood or metal that could tell of furniture or other items. I landed carefully on the hatch which was covered in less fibre than the former stone ground. A few careful cuts with my talons cleaned it and some space next to it.
Once I was done, I took a minute break to listen and look for any threats but nothing came so I proceeded. The latch that had once locked the entrance was a pile of thin strands right next to the entrance. The metal must have been something different from steel or gold. Maybe copper? Or bronze?
I cleared the last detritus away and looked for threats one more time. When nothing came to my attention, I carefully dug a talon into the wood. Then I pulled. It did not move. Catori mentally slapped her forehead.
“That body is probably too weak to open the hatch with just that. Try to rattle it a little, see if it moves at least.”
I gave her a nod and dug a second talon in for a little more grip. Then I shook my foot. There was some creaking but it did not budge. A few more tries only left me with some wooden splinters.
“I could probably dig through”, I said, “This stuff is really soft.”
“Dangerous. If we have to leave just as we can get in, there’s a high chance we lose anything useful that might still be in there.”
I considered for a moment.
“I’m still going to get started. See how thick it is and then start cutting a little less than that.”
Catori acquiesced and I got to work. It was tedious trying to avoid contact with any of the wood but I managed. My silverwood ‘boots’ were still perfectly stable and protecting this body without any issues.
The hatch turned out to be about three centimetres thick so I got to work cutting a small groove around the centre. It was a slightly botched circle large enough to let my body drop through.
“I’d make it big enough to get out again”, Catori said.
“This body is disposable. Especially since we still have the falcon. I want to know what’s in there but I won’t be able to take anything with me anyway, so better to just get in quick.”
“Fair.”
I was interrupted once I had traced the hole a second time. This time it was not a swarm of insects. It was a dog. Or what once had been a dog. As soon as I heard the wet breathing and shuffling steps, I made my way to the top of a nearby wall. Half a minute later, the tainted animal came into the room I had been working on. Its fur was purple and looked like someone had drenched it in slime. One leg had a third joint between ankle and knee that made it limp weirdly.
But the worst part was its face. Bloodshot eyes glowed red. One ear was only half attached, the other was crusted with blood that was too purple. The snout had furrows like a child had taken a carving knife to it. Parts of the lips were missing and showed irregular teeth. With irregular placements, and irregular sizes. Some were larger than my talons and bit into the other side. Some stood off to the side. Others were more like swarms of tiny teeth. Two particularly long ones bent elastically and I recoiled when I realized they were tentacles. And it had three tongues. One purple and the normal size but missing a bit. One black and with furry growth on it like mould. The last pink and more of a viscous liquid than flesh.
The beast sniffed from its deformed nose and looked up. There was a gurgling that some might have called a growl and then it was flying at me. Shocked, I pushed off with a gust of air helping me get distance. The beast spun horizontally as it was flying and snapped after my tail feathers as it sailed by only half a metre below me. The pink tongue extended and just barely missed me. I shot off as fast as I could, my heart racing.
“What the fuck…”, Catori whispered.
“Yeah. What the actual fuck.”
