| [Strategic Coordinator Braungrube] |
“Hello?” asks the woman, her voice echoing around the darkness and bouncing off of the cold metal walls. “H- hello?” repeats Strategic Coordinator Braungrube, tapping her bulky finger against the microphone. “Is… is anyone there?” she asks.
No response.
Warm, foggy breath touches the back of her neck and she stiffens up as her body shivers at the same time, causing her to wobble in her chair as she slowly spins around to look at…
— Geospatial Coordinator Rotwald, the harpy. The harpy tilts her head, clicking with her mouth, and Braungrube lets out a terrified scream, pressing back against her chair. Rotwald shrieks in turn, holding her wings out to the side.
After a moment, the screams trail off, leaving Bruangrube still sitting there, clutching her chest, and Rotwald tilting her head, likely not sure what’s going on.
“You scared me,” says Braungrube, sighing and relaxing. Her chair creaks as she leans it back forward. The minotaur looks over her shoulder at the communication station and then back around the room. “I think we went dark,” explains the minotaur. “Sun’s out again.”
Rotwald scratches against the metal flooring with her talons, causing Braungrube to look down at the pair of gooey, yellow eyes, staring at them from below through the slits in the floor.
Braungrube yelps, jumping up from her chair, as Blauhausen, being without her suit, dribbles up through the flooring and reconstitutes herself between them. “It’s dark,” says the ooze.
The minotaur, her hand clutching her heart, looks at them. “I lost contact with Grun and Gottlieb,” she says, calming herself down. “What should we do?”
“Wait,” suggests Blauhausen, the ooze.
An excellent idea. Braungrube is on board with that and nods in agreement. “Good, then we’ll just hunker down here and wait for the two of them to come back,” she says, finding her way back to her chair in the dim emergency lighting.
It’s quiet.
The three of them stare at one another for a time.
“Where’s your suit?” asks Braungrube, looking at the ooze.
She shrugs. “Got stuck,” replies the creature, pointing down to the tunnels below.
“Oh, we should go get that, probably,” replies the minotaur.
“— If you wish to die,” hisses a voice in her ear from the left. Braungrube screams, pressing herself against the communication’s console as she looks at Security Officer Schwarzwasser.
“STOP SNEAKING UP ON ME!” yells the minotaur, bracing herself.
“It is dark now,” hisses the serpentine woman. “The creatures of the many holes will now leave their dens and burrows to stalk the station,” she explains. “Listen,” says the naga, leaning in toward her and narrowing her eyes. “Can you hear them?” she asks.
Braungrube gulps and quietly listens to the world around them. The station groans and clinks, as if it were the body of an ailing elder, moaning to let its discomfort be known to the world. Pipes hiss, and there is a faint buzz of the emergency lights.
“LISTEN!” shouts Schwarzwasser. Braungrube screams in terror as the woman grabs her. “The station belongs to the monsters now,” she explains. “The corridors, the tunnels, and the rooms,” says the naga. “Anywhere you’re alone, you’ll get eaten,” she begins, leaning in closer with her eyes going wide. “Anywhere you’re in the dark, you’ll get eaten,” she lists. “Anywhere you go where it’s tight and cramped, and you can’t get away -”
“- SNACK!” says Blauhausen excitedly.
Schwarzwasser nods, letting the minotaur go. “Correct. Your entrails will be feasted upon by the chittering mass.”
“The… the what?” asks Braungrube.
Schwarzwasser turns back, looking over her shoulder. “They live in the pipes,” she says, ominously.
“The… the p- pipes?” She looks at the others. Blauhausen shrugs, and Rotwald, tilting her head, begins pecking on a nearby pipe until she is restrained by a terrified minotaur.
The four of them wait there, in the gunner’s bay.
A full day has passed.
Braungrube sits on the edge of the staircase, staring towards the entrance to the bay, which had been barricaded with chairs a long time ago by the human-god, if the stories are true.
They’re still not back.
She sits there, twiddling her thumbs, and stares up towards the ceiling. “Do you ever wonder why we’re here?” she asks.
“Papa made me,” replies the ooze, glooping over a railing. She wasn’t allowed to sleep in the beds without her suit, given that she’s highly toxic to all living things. However, her suit is down in the tunnels, where they’re forbidden from going by the security officer.
“I… sure,” says Braungrube, lifting an eyebrow. “But what about me?” she asks, then points to the side at the harpy. “What about Rotwald?”
Blauhausen stares vacantly for a time, dripping downward like a dangling drop of slime, before she falls too far and begins to pull herself back upward again. “Papa made you?” she guesses.
“I don’t think so,” replies the minotaur. “Grun always says he’s just, ah…” Braungrube stops herself, looking at Blauhausen’s expecting eyes. Grunheide the goblin says a lot of things; she isn’t very fond of the human-god and takes a more pragmatic view of their situation as an unfortunate ‘it is what it is’ set of circumstances. She’s really smart, so it makes sense. But she doesn’t phrase it quite so nicely, honestly, and Blau really likes the human-god. “She says she doesn’t think so,” she finishes.
“Hmm…”
“We are here to hunt the things that would devour us,” hisses a voice from the side. They turn to look at Security Officer Schwarzwasser, who is holding the rifle and aiming around the room with it. “As would they devour our flesh, the goal of life is to devour theirs first,” she says, narrowing her eyes and aiming the rifle at her. Braungrube ducks down, covering her head. “Life is nothing but a game of always being the first one to eat.” She pulls the trigger, and there is a hollow clicking sound. “For there is no second one.”
“That’s so dangerous!” protests the minotaur, lifting her gaze.
The naga hisses at her and sets the rifle down. “Those who do not return from the darkness are dead, as they have been eaten,” she explains.
“Eaten?” asks Braungrube.
“The human-god and the goblin have been feasted upon by the monsters of the harrowing darkness,” she explains. “It is time for us to go and retrieve the gnawed remains of their corpses, so that we might restore honor to them.”
“Nu uh!” snaps Blauhausen, bubbling in agitation as she forms herself together into a loose bodily shape. “Not true!”
Schwarzwasser nods. “It is the way of life,” she says.
“I thought you said we can’t go outside?” asks Braungrube, watching Schwarzwasser head to the exit of the bay.
“That was yesterday,” replies the naga. “Honor is now at stake. To lose it would be worse than death. Come.”
She slithers off and exits the bay. Rotwald and Blauhausen look at one another and then go off after her. The ooze waves for her to follow, but Braungrube just sits there, not wanting to go.
“This is a terrible idea!” she calls after them, but her protests fall on deaf ears.
The minotaur sits there by herself in the gunner’s bay, listening to the deafening silence come from all around her, crushing in on her like when she was alone in the labyrinth, listening to the thundering steps of a monster — that she later learned was Gottlieb — moving around outside.
She gets up and runs after the others.
| [Wood-Mother of the Goblin Tribe] |
| Dryad, Female, Woodmother |
With feral eyes and a feral body, the animal dryad stares up towards the moonlight that covers the world, her fur on her doe legs covered in crusted blood and filth, and the skin of her upper body covered in scars from claws and teeth.
The sun has fallen dark in what promises to be the final draw of shadow over creation. She has learned the lesson the heavens were trying to impart on her. There will not be the need for another display of this prominence. She will make them proud this time around, to achieve forgiveness for her failings prior.
Lanky, wretched limbs reach out of the hole in the world, like the sprouting tendrils of a thorned plant, pressing through the soil to rise from the underground. Gnashing, crooked teeth shine in the light of yellow eyes as hundreds of hobgoblins rise from the cavern to set foot onto the soil above and howl as they storm towards the north, towards the human capital.
She watches them run, dropping to all fours as they sprint like beasts, as is fitting for the dawn of this new age, an age free of humans and elves and their ilk, an age of tooth and claw, as the gods had originally intended for this world.
Purity.
There is purity to the animal ways.
The world will know purity in this new age, the age of the beast.
And it begins now.
| [Strategic Coordinator Braungrube] |
“Hello?” asks the woman, her voice echoing around the darkness and bouncing off of the cold metal walls. “H- hello?” repeats Strategic Coordinator Braungrube, tapping her bulky finger against the microphone. “Is… is anyone there?” she asks.
No response.
Warm, foggy breath touches the back of her neck and she stiffens up as her body shivers at the same time, causing her to wobble in her chair as she slowly spins around to look at…
— Geospatial Coordinator Rotwald, the harpy. The harpy tilts her head, clicking with her mouth, and Braungrube lets out a terrified scream, pressing back against her chair. Rotwald shrieks in turn, holding her wings out to the side.
After a moment, the screams trail off, leaving Bruangrube still sitting there, clutching her chest, and Rotwald tilting her head, likely not sure what’s going on.
“You scared me,” says Braungrube, sighing and relaxing. Her chair creaks as she leans it back forward. The minotaur looks over her shoulder at the communication station and then back around the room. “I think we went dark,” explains the minotaur. “Sun’s out again.”
Rotwald scratches against the metal flooring with her talons, causing Braungrube to look down at the pair of gooey, yellow eyes, staring at them from below through the slits in the floor.
Braungrube yelps, jumping up from her chair, as Blauhausen, being without her suit, dribbles up through the flooring and reconstitutes herself between them. “It’s dark,” says the ooze.
The minotaur, her hand clutching her heart, looks at them. “I lost contact with Grun and Gottlieb,” she says, calming herself down. “What should we do?”
“Wait,” suggests Blauhausen, the ooze.
An excellent idea. Braungrube is on board with that and nods in agreement. “Good, then we’ll just hunker down here and wait for the two of them to come back,” she says, finding her way back to her chair in the dim emergency lighting.
It’s quiet.
The three of them stare at one another for a time.
“Where’s your suit?” asks Braungrube, looking at the ooze.
She shrugs. “Got stuck,” replies the creature, pointing down to the tunnels below.
“Oh, we should go get that, probably,” replies the minotaur.
“— If you wish to die,” hisses a voice in her ear from the left. Braungrube screams, pressing herself against the communication’s console as she looks at Security Officer Schwarzwasser.
“STOP SNEAKING UP ON ME!” yells the minotaur, bracing herself.
“It is dark now,” hisses the serpentine woman. “The creatures of the many holes will now leave their dens and burrows to stalk the station,” she explains. “Listen,” says the naga, leaning in toward her and narrowing her eyes. “Can you hear them?” she asks.
Braungrube gulps and quietly listens to the world around them. The station groans and clinks, as if it were the body of an ailing elder, moaning to let its discomfort be known to the world. Pipes hiss, and there is a faint buzz of the emergency lights.
“LISTEN!” shouts Schwarzwasser. Braungrube screams in terror as the woman grabs her. “The station belongs to the monsters now,” she explains. “The corridors, the tunnels, and the rooms,” says the naga. “Anywhere you’re alone, you’ll get eaten,” she begins, leaning in closer with her eyes going wide. “Anywhere you’re in the dark, you’ll get eaten,” she lists. “Anywhere you go where it’s tight and cramped, and you can’t get away -”
“- SNACK!” says Blauhausen excitedly.
Schwarzwasser nods, letting the minotaur go. “Correct. Your entrails will be feasted upon by the chittering mass.”
“The… the what?” asks Braungrube.
Schwarzwasser turns back, looking over her shoulder. “They live in the pipes,” she says, ominously.
“The… the p- pipes?” She looks at the others. Blauhausen shrugs, and Rotwald, tilting her head, begins pecking on a nearby pipe until she is restrained by a terrified minotaur.
The four of them wait there, in the gunner’s bay.
A full day has passed.
Braungrube sits on the edge of the staircase, staring towards the entrance to the bay, which had been barricaded with chairs a long time ago by the human-god, if the stories are true.
They’re still not back.
She sits there, twiddling her thumbs, and stares up towards the ceiling. “Do you ever wonder why we’re here?” she asks.
“Papa made me,” replies the ooze, glooping over a railing. She wasn’t allowed to sleep in the beds without her suit, given that she’s highly toxic to all living things. However, her suit is down in the tunnels, where they’re forbidden from going by the security officer.
“I… sure,” says Braungrube, lifting an eyebrow. “But what about me?” she asks, then points to the side at the harpy. “What about Rotwald?”
Blauhausen stares vacantly for a time, dripping downward like a dangling drop of slime, before she falls too far and begins to pull herself back upward again. “Papa made you?” she guesses.
“I don’t think so,” replies the minotaur. “Grun always says he’s just, ah…” Braungrube stops herself, looking at Blauhausen’s expecting eyes. Grunheide the goblin says a lot of things; she isn’t very fond of the human-god and takes a more pragmatic view of their situation as an unfortunate ‘it is what it is’ set of circumstances. She’s really smart, so it makes sense. But she doesn’t phrase it quite so nicely, honestly, and Blau really likes the human-god. “She says she doesn’t think so,” she finishes.
“Hmm…”
“We are here to hunt the things that would devour us,” hisses a voice from the side. They turn to look at Security Officer Schwarzwasser, who is holding the rifle and aiming around the room with it. “As would they devour our flesh, the goal of life is to devour theirs first,” she says, narrowing her eyes and aiming the rifle at her. Braungrube ducks down, covering her head. “Life is nothing but a game of always being the first one to eat.” She pulls the trigger, and there is a hollow clicking sound. “For there is no second one.”
“That’s so dangerous!” protests the minotaur, lifting her gaze.
The naga hisses at her and sets the rifle down. “Those who do not return from the darkness are dead, as they have been eaten,” she explains.
“Eaten?” asks Braungrube.
“The human-god and the goblin have been feasted upon by the monsters of the harrowing darkness,” she explains. “It is time for us to go and retrieve the gnawed remains of their corpses, so that we might restore honor to them.”
“Nu uh!” snaps Blauhausen, bubbling in agitation as she forms herself together into a loose bodily shape. “Not true!”
Schwarzwasser nods. “It is the way of life,” she says.
“I thought you said we can’t go outside?” asks Braungrube, watching Schwarzwasser head to the exit of the bay.
“That was yesterday,” replies the naga. “Honor is now at stake. To lose it would be worse than death. Come.”
She slithers off and exits the bay. Rotwald and Blauhausen look at one another and then go off after her. The ooze waves for her to follow, but Braungrube just sits there, not wanting to go.
“This is a terrible idea!” she calls after them, but her protests fall on deaf ears.
The minotaur sits there by herself in the gunner’s bay, listening to the deafening silence come from all around her, crushing in on her like when she was alone in the labyrinth, listening to the thundering steps of a monster — that she later learned was Gottlieb — moving around outside.
She gets up and runs after the others.
| [Wood-Mother of the Goblin Tribe] |
| Dryad, Female, Woodmother |
With feral eyes and a feral body, the animal dryad stares up towards the moonlight that covers the world, her fur on her doe legs covered in crusted blood and filth, and the skin of her upper body covered in scars from claws and teeth.
The sun has fallen dark in what promises to be the final draw of shadow over creation. She has learned the lesson the heavens were trying to impart on her. There will not be the need for another display of this prominence. She will make them proud this time around, to achieve forgiveness for her failings prior.
Lanky, wretched limbs reach out of the hole in the world, like the sprouting tendrils of a thorned plant, pressing through the soil to rise from the underground. Gnashing, crooked teeth shine in the light of yellow eyes as hundreds of hobgoblins rise from the cavern to set foot onto the soil above and howl as they storm towards the north, towards the human capital.
She watches them run, dropping to all fours as they sprint like beasts, as is fitting for the dawn of this new age, an age free of humans and elves and their ilk, an age of tooth and claw, as the gods had originally intended for this world.
Purity.
There is purity to the animal ways.
The world will know purity in this new age, the age of the beast.
And it begins now.
