FINAL CORE - Chapter 43 (Patreon)

Recipe: Brew of the Witch’s Moon

• 120 mL of moonwater
• One whole shamrock
• One leaf of basil
• Six drops of blackwater

- Stir into a bowl

• One fresh fairy, whole

- Ground lower half in mortar. Do not detach from the rest of the body.

- Add in to the mixture

- Wait until death

- Grind rest of fairy

- Add granular mass to Moonwater Solution

- Boil

- Imbue with magic beneath the light of a jubilant moon.

~A hand-written recipe from Witch Perchta’s grimoire, which is always permanently damp. The ink is runny and never dries fully.

___________________________________________

Soft rain falls down from above. Isaiah lifts its head, looking up towards the clouds that fill the night sky. Their heavy, leaking forms obscure the light of the full-moon.

It lifts a talon.

The moon feels very close tonight.

— How strange.

It tilts its head, watching as the droplets of rain cascade around the roost, splashing against the now-cleared table and the roofs of the little houses atop the tower.

The festivities went well.

The selling of their image as a divine, holy place has gone extremely well. Despite everything, it has, in fact, gone perfectly.

The bishop and his followers are all believers now and they have established a truce. The humans will be allowed to gain access to the dungeon for the resources the regenerating floors can provide them with. This is not a demand that the church made. They made no demands at all and were willing to agree to Isaiah’s terms without condition, no matter what they were.

But Isaiah knows the ways of humans.

The city has many religious people. But it also has many of no faith. Many of these people are in positions of power. So, it has thrown in a bread-crumb to satiate even those hungry maws.

— They can economize the dungeon and use it like any other dungeon in the world to gather materials.

And Isaiah will see to it that nobody here dies inside of the tower, on the condition that the church establishes a presence and preaches the good word of the gospel of Isaiah.

Isaiah had no idea that such a thing existed, honestly. But Rorate has been busy to say the least. The dark-elf has been using her free time to not only write sermons, but a whole packaged manifest of teachings and wisdom that Isaiah doesn’t exactly remember ever saying.

But it’s fine.

“‘Moon sure is bright tonight,” says Red, flying over.

Isaiah nods. “It is. Are they done?” asks Isaiah.

Red gives it a thumbs-up. “They’re packing back up now. But they’re not leaving until the morning, what with the whole road being ripped free from the world and all.”

“Green,” says Isaiah.

Green looks out from his nest on the branch of the very-big-tree. “Yeah?”

“When the morning comes, please make a stairway off of the island back down to the road below.”

“Uh… a stairway?” asks Green. “Are you, uh, are you sure?” He tilts its head. “Isn’t the island like… almost three kilometers up in the air?”

Isaiah shrugs. “There will be a lot of stairs.”

“What about carts and carriages?”

Isaiah shakes its head. “A tribulation,” it says. “One must walk the stairs in order to reach the tower.”

“Oooh!” says Crystal, popping out of his nest. “Wait. We have those pilgrimage tokens, right?” he asks. “What if we set it up so that you only need to walk once, but next time, if you have a token, you can just warp up the stairs?”

“Can we do that?” asks Isaiah.

“Dungeon-magic solves a lot of problems,” replies Crystal. “I think I can make it work with Gray’s help on the tokens.” Gray nods.

“Very well,” says Isaiah. “Then it is a plan.” It looks up towards the sky. The moon really does look odd tonight, doesn’t it? It’s large and bright. But perhaps it’s because of the rain clouds. They’re drifting past it, always half-obscuring it and half distorting its full body.

…Full?

“Red,” asks Isaiah. “How often does a full moon appear?”

“Huh?” Red looks up towards the sky. “Uh, every two weeks, or?” she asks, looking at the other uthra, who nod in agreement.

Isaiah points up towards the moon, unusually large, bright and nearly orange. “Then why is it full again?”

It’s quiet for a time.

“…It’s the witch…” says a voice quietly down below. Rorate. Isaiah turns to look at her. “Oh no…” says the dark-elf, the rain splashing against her face.

The witch?

Isaiah blinks, realizing. Didn’t she live in the east? In the forest?

— In the forest that it just ripped in half?

Oh.

“Red!” says Isaiah, turning sharply towards the uthra.

Red sighs, shaking her head. “It really is always going to be like this, isn’t it?” she asks. Isaiah jumps to its feet in a panic. No. Not now. Not like this. Not after everything has lined up so well for the first time. Not after everything it has given up to make this work like it has.

It remembers witches. Witches aren’t just normal casters, like a sorcerer or some geomancer. Those normal types of magic-users are bound by the laws of the system that govern the world. But witches…

“— Get everyone inside!” it orders. “Now!” Isaiah points at the others. “GO!” They all shoot off out of their nests.

The clouds break. The rain, previously at a drizzle, begins to pour.

(Rorate) has taken {01} damage from [BLACKWATER]

“Ow!” she yelps, covering her head. “OW!” Isaiah flies down, grabbing her and shielding her with its massive wings. It moves off towards the house, moving to get Rorate inside and out of the rain.

(Rorate) has taken {02} damage from [BLACKWATER]

- Witches aren’t bound by the normal rules of the system. They’re integrated into it like any other man or woman. But they bend the rules so far that they’re essentially above it entirely.

There’s a reason most of them were hunted and killed. Only a handful remain in the world, few and far between.

Shrill screams rise up from the grounds of the tower, all the way up to the roost at a  dizzying height. The tones carried unusually far and high, as if some presence were carrying them all the way towards it, to make a point.

Isaiah opens the door and pushes Rorate inside. “Stay out of the rain,” it says. “I will return.”

“Wait, I can help!”

“Help by keeping the others safe,” says Isaiah and then rises back into the air, closing the door at the same time.

The rain, consisting of a liquid that feels acrid and thick, runs down Isaiah’s pearl-hued body, dripping off towards the base of the tower.

[Spell Negated]

You may not engage this entity without clearing the dungeon.

It shoots down off of the roost, heading down towards the ground where people are scrambling all around. The guards, the priests, the cardinals, the adventurers — everyone is making a rush for whatever shelter they can find. Many try to get to the carriages, but the guardsmen of the nobles push the many of them out and back into the rain.

The uthra are flying in and out, dragging terrified, screaming people across the grounds as they claw into the grass and the stones, not aware of the intention of the entities pulling them into the shadows and the dungeon.

[Territory Breached!]

Intruders: 01

Average Level: ???

Difficulty: [ERROR]

Isaiah lands down on the ground, its palm pressing into the wet grass as a terrified, screaming face is yanked past itself, into the tower. People lay around the carriages, flailing in pain as the befouled rainwater burns their faces and bodies. Red puts up a magical barrier from her skill-set, gained at level three, trying to cover a few of them. But only a handful make it inside.

Isaiah turns its head, staring across the grounds and across the river, towards the dark forest on the other side of it, awash in gruesome moonlight.

The clouds in the air, that had been silhouetting the unusually large moon, move into place, creeping like a growing fungus as they obscure half of it in an entirely unnatural pattern, causing the moon to look like a long, crooked face with a jagged mouth.

As its eyes wander back down to the grounds of the forest below, it sees a wraithly, gangly figure standing there in the forest, staring its way with the coldest eyes it has ever seen.

— Eyes that are visible even at this distance, in this poor light. They shine with a hollowness that causes Isaiah to feel even its own hairless skin prick on end.

Its hair flows in uncanny directions, as if it were a drowning corpse, sinking into a light-less ocean.

“Good luck, chief,” says Red. Isaiah feels something pressing itself into its taloned hand.

It’s the golden sword it had made for the final encounter with the second inspection team. “You were my favorite core. I’ll really miss you when you’re gone,” she says, flying off to grab more people.

Isaiah lifts the sword.

“Witch Perchta,” it says, pointing the blade her way. “May we speak?” asks Isaiah. “I am afraid that I -”

“- YOU DESTROYED MY HOUSE!” she screams. The woman, the creature, grabs her open mouth with her left hand, her four fingers pressing into the inside of her cheek and rips it back open, pulling her face away as if it were a mask. But rather than something human beneath the loose skin, there is only a monster with a long, crooked snout and gangrene, jagged teeth. “A CURSE! A CURSE ON YOU!” she howls and lunges forward.

Isaiah pushes in, lunging towards her.

Perhaps it is about time to meet the neighbors.