Episode 10: The Haunted Cave

I hate the jungle.
I really hate the jungle.

Nothing in my training prepared me for extended operations outside of Cheldrun territory. I will correct this oversight, in time. That won't help me now.

I walk through the jungle, thoroughly lost. I don't understand why navigation is so much harder here than it is in the city. I am struck by the sheer, vast silence of the wilderness. There are no minds here. Anywhere. I am... alone.

I tread through a small stream. take off my boot to empty it of water. And then I'm not alone. There is a sharp pain in my foot. I look down. Something is squirming there. I feel vaguely sick. I activate my psychic knife and deny the parasite consciousness. If I must endure it, I will not endure squirming.

I thought it would be a simple matter to raid the Cheldrun camp for materials. I need a handheld computer in order to read the files on White-Rock research. I hadn't anticipated this kind of trouble.

Now I'm being watched. I leap into a tree to gain a vantage point on the clearing below.

There is pain. Something is crawling on by back. I hate the jungle. It would not bother me at all to see every square mile of it burned. Burned.

Burn.

It does. The fires ripple out from my body, and everything around me bursts into flames. I feel better. There is joy in destruction, even if it's only a tree, and whatever it was that bit me. The smoldering body of a thing the size of a grapefruit falls from the tree. Then another, and another. Several dozen bodies fall all told. It isn't satisfying - not like eliminating a target - but it will do. It still seems strange not to experience the pain of my targets. I'm so used to feeling what they feel as they die, their pain and their panic slowly fading away into silence, it's... I don't know. I sometimes think there is something very wrong with me. Moses thinks so. Maybe he's right.

I look back. There is a nest of some kind of ... giant bug. It's on fire. The whole tree is on fire. The insects are pouring out of the tree.

I leap down.

Something is here. Something is here. I whirl around a second too late. A claw digs into the flesh of my back, and there is pain. I am pressed heavily to the ground. A mind full of hunger and eyes in the dark, ripping talons and torn flesh. "You are a long way from home, little Biomade," a voice says, low and threatening.

I allow my psychokinetic barrier to snap into place and tense, readying myself to do battle. "Long story," I say. It is.

I feel hot breath on the back of my neck, and long fangs nick the edge of the shield around my neck. "I wouldn't do that, little Biomade," the voice says.

I would. Mama Pain told me a thousand times: the correct response to being in mortal danger is to kill the thing which seeks your life. If you surrender, you lose your agency. You become a victim, and you will deserve whatever happens to you.

"Rei!" comes High Dive's high pitched voice. The creature releases me and dashes off into the woods.

The Zipsum have found me.

Damn it.

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I am a long time recovering from my ordeal in the jungle. I don't remember most of it. I have vague memories of telling Moses that I had been sent to kill him. I hope those were only fever-dreams. Mokuzai says I spoke of Project Scion, and Inase Spark. He asks what these things are, and I tell him.

He seems disturbed. His thoughts are all fox-tricks and shaken shadows, like they always are. Nothing intelligible. Not for the first time, I wish I could read the minds of Karians. Aimi can. Is there some purpose in this, Inase? Did you mean for me to be deaf to Karians? ...

The Zipsum laughingly tell me that if I eat a horrible pepper all day for two weeks, I can drive the parasite out of my foot, but it will have numerous inconvenient side-effects that are obviously calculated for as much humiliation as possible. I sterilize the tools I have on hand and cut it out myself.

After three weeks, the big Zipsum party finally ends. We are then told that we can prove that we are not 'defilers' by going into a cave caused by a 'giant purple vorax' which crashed nearby, finding said Vorax, and bringing it back to the village.

I briefly consider the feasibility of killing every Zipsum in the village.

No. Moses wouldn't like that. He often tells me that killing is wrong. Una and High Dive probably wouldn't like it, either. Kiyoshi? ... I bet he'd be OK with it. I'm not sure what Mokuzai would think.

Moses confuses me. He reacts with horror to practical suggestions. I find myself reconsidering those sort of practical courses of action for his sake. Even worse, there have been occasions in which his horror and Kiyoshi's distaste for the suggested course have produced an... echo, in my head. Something that doesn't come from an external source. This never happened before. Why now?

We depart for the cave.

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Eyes. Eyes in the dark. A mind full of wrong angles and twisted geometry. We walk. There is a flash, and I am covered in dirt and gasping for breath. Moses says that I was buried under
the Earth. Something in the cave is playing with our minds. Making us see and feel things that aren't real.

The whole thing looks like a drilling machine has forced its way down here. Spirals of cooled magma line the walls. A strange mist is everywhere.

Mokuzai thinks that whatever it is that is in here, it is trying to teach us something.

We enter the mist again. There is a flash, and the world fades away.

Fire. Fire is everywhere. Fire pours down from above. Beneath is a stone surface. Mokuzai whirls and falls out of view, and the whole world is fire.

It's beautiful.

I barely think to shield myself. I leap up to find the source of the flame: it is a tiny black speck.

I am disappointed. I had hoped to meet Amaterasu again.

The speck ripples. It becomes a handful of flowers. The floor becomes soap bubbles, and I fall.

I stop my fall with a telekinetic shield. There is nothing. Above me, below me, nothing. Mokuzai dwindles away in the distance, falling, falling into nothing.

Mokuzai flickers. Mokuzai is above me, falling towards me.

Who are you?

It's not a voice. I feel the question in my bones. "Who are you?" I ask the emptiness. "What do you want?"

Mokuzai continues to fall, and at length, I shake my head irritatedly and jump after him. I catch him in short order and put an end to his fall.

"My hero," he says sardonically.

I raise an eyebrow. "What do you think all this is?" I ask.

He thinks for a moment. "It tried to tell me that I am helpless. It showed Moses that he cannot save everyone. It showed Kiyoshi the price of his inheritance. It shows you..." he considered his answer a moment longer, "There does not appear to be a rhyme or a reason. Perhaps that is the point."

Who are you?

"I am Rei."

Whoever the asker is, that response does not satisfy it.

Chaos and emptiness swirls everywhere. No. Whoever is doing this is wrong. They don't understand. Understanding is a three-edged sword, and they have only one of its sides - theirs.

I will make it better. I will make it better. I try to make the world around me into something else. I think of Amaterasu, and the thought makes me smile. I make the world into the place where she showed how even Heishi can be beautiful - the exit to the mines.

It turns to sand and falls away.

I grit my teeth. I make a floor, and we stand upon it for a moment before it too turns to sand and falls away.

I summon the door to my room back Home and open it. Tentacles and madness and horror shriek at me from the other side, and I slam the door shut again.

Who are you? Are you unable to answer even such a simple question? Have you nothing of your own? Nothing to stand on that is not provided, defined, stamped, sanctioned, numbered, and approved by others? WHO ARE YOU?

I'm not sure if I'm asking this or if the source comes from outside. But wherever the questions come from, they're wrong. I tell Mokuzai of Purpose. I tell him that my Purpose was to serve as a tool of the Oversight Council. My purpose was to kill. I tell him that Mama Pain and Doctor Soren lied to me. They hadn't created me at all, and they didn't know why I had been made, or what I had been made for. Mokuzai tells me that I am in the same position as every other sentient being on the face of Karia.

That's unacceptable. There is one man who does know. One man who can tell me why I was made, and what I am for.

Inase Spark.

A sense of horrific failure rises up all around. Whatever it is that has created this world believes I have failed, or am failing, or that this response is incorrect, and it wishes to enforce this feeling upon me. It feels like Mama Pain said it, and that makes it true, except for one thing:

I will not be dictated to by eyes in the dark.

As the world solidifies around me, and around Mokuzai, and we find ourselves in the cave once more, I clench my fist. I will find my creator. I will find him, and I will learn from him why he made me, and for what Purpose. I will.

Moses is near. And Una. And Kiyoshi. Kiyoshi's thoughts are full of the pain of others, but he doesn't appear to appreciate it, the struggle of life and death. And then there are eyes all around. Eyes in the dark. Eyes and teeth and tongues. I ignite my psychic knife, and it glows redly in the dark.

Eyes. Everywhere, eyes.

Mokuzai vanishes.