FINAL CORE - Chapter 133: Final Autumn (Patreon)

What is the purpose of faith, exactly?

Did it help me when the world shook beneath my feet, the great quake tearing apart the house that I have lived in, that my father had lived in, that his father had lived in, and turning it to rubble?

Did it help me when the wars came and went, sweeping across the landscape like a tide, that caused the wetness to come, being drawn free from flesh rather than being inherent in and of itself?

Did faith help me when I cradled my boy in my arms, enough air leaving my lungs for the both of ours, yet his not receiving any. When I stood over my wife, a bed of soil separating us in body and an impenetrable veil separating us in spirit?

In all of these moments, what good did my faith do me?

Did it stop them from happening?

No.

Did it lessen the pain and dampen my screams?

No.

But what faith did do is give me is the knowledge that I have been left, yes, but I have not been left behind.

I have lost my heart of flesh, yet my spirit beats in its place.

I continue to live with compassion, with grace and kindness, so that when I leave this vessel and return to that which I truly am — a soul — I will be able to look my kin, with whom I will have reunited, in their eyes and know that they know what kind of a man I truly was, as proven by my goodness not within their presence but also by my continued goodness after they had left.

So that we may then, together, return to the world anew in new flesh and spirit, to try again to achieve whatever it is that the gods desire of us.

I keep the faith.

~Words of a man, tending to the abandoned graves around his family’s graves.

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~ [Isaiah] ~

The world shakes, the sky shakes, and the bodies of the men and women on the island shake as black, lashing tendrils the size of ancient yew trees of bygone days strike against the landmass. They sprout out of the black ocean, bubbling to the surface beneath the flying island in abundance, like sharply rising tsunamis during the end of the days, crashing and breaking against the rocks that dangle down above them.

Isaiah’s wings beat loudly as it looks at the malignant contortion that comes to form down below itself, a face forming in the waters that has no resemblance to humanity, to womanhood, or to its prior owner — instead, it is the face of a monster, with a maw of black sap formed of the poison water and hollow craters for eyes that stare up, not toward the island, but instead toward it.

“…Witch Perchta…” mutters Isaiah beneath its breath in horrified realization. It has seen many things in its time, but never anything like this. The land from here to as far off as the distant horizon is sunken and morass, bubbling with fetid rot, churning as the south of the world sinks — having become far too heavy and unstable to remain above sea-level, having become flooded from the ocean below the island because of Isaiah’s doing and from the damage now caused by Witch Perchta. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” yells the being, pointing down at the malignancy festering on the skin of the world with a golden talon, its eyes of the same hue filled with a terror not because of the threat she poses, but because of the look in her eyes.

The air fills with a black smoke that rises from the tar, a miasma rising up from below.

A scream fills the air, overpowering the thousands of screams stemming from the island below, which has begun to quake. The air shakes, Isaiah’s bones reverberating along with the white stones of the grand tower that rumble in its presence as the monster below screams.

“YOU DID THIS TO ME!” howls the thing that the witch has become, several of the tendrils ripping off rocks, pulling them down into the ocean, tearing off pieces of the island’s edges, hammering at it from all sides.

- [NEW AREA ADDED!] -

Floor 199 - THE TORRENTIAL PRECIPICE   

The edge of the gate of the spirit world. Violent, cascading energies fill the air here.

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~ [The Humming Man] ~

Human, Male, Chronomancer

Location: The Island

And a one and a two and a one-two-three-four!

The humming man jumps off of the edge of the island, his feet hanging over full nothingness, the wind gracing his presence for only a brief instant as he begins to fall.

— And then promptly comes to a sudden stop, landing straight on the back of the great, white wyrm that has taken to the air.

He holds his arms out to the sides, lowering himself into a bow as the serpent rises up from the sides of the stone cavern faces it has been resting in, flying into the sky as a white streak, as if it were the only bright cloud in the dark, gloomy world.

It’s about that time.

This has been a very long job. Sometimes they’re like this. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they’re their own thing, and sometimes the thing that they are is another thing, but actually it comes back around to be its own thing.

He hums, spinning around on the back of the flying wyrm for a time, as he hops and jumps jovially over its massive scales as it winds through the air, until he comes to a stop and spins, dropping down onto all fours to hold his hands on the edge of a large, white, prismatic scale that has come loose with age.

Holding his tongue between his lips, he gives it a firm tug, shifting it a few inches to the side, and then nods, holding his hat firm against the winds as he rises to his feet, looking down at the very, very, very distant world below them.

“And a one and a two and -”

The humming man jumps off of the wyrm, free-falling straight down towards the black, dead ocean beneath the island. He turns around, laying on his back, and extends an arm out to the side.

“- a three and a four!” He grips his hand closed.

A very confused white-feathered harpy squeaks and squawks as his hand grabs hold of its leg, causing it to lose height for a brief second and fall away from its flock, which is circling the tower in alarm. She looks around, not seeing him, and — perhaps attributing her disruption to some odd turbulence — returns to their trajectory, heading straight towards the tower.

Waiting a moment longer, he drops down, flying toward it, toward…

— He thinks for a second.

Toward floor one hundred and fifty-nine, to be precise.

The humming man latches on to an ornamental gargoyle on the tower’s exterior, climbing into a comfortable position up in the lofty heights.

This was a very long job. But it won’t be much longer now.

He lifts his hands to his face, making a frame with his fingers to look at the flying entity above him, hovering in the air. Isaiah. It’s the reason he’s here to begin with. His customer took a very strong interest in this development, but that’s a redundant statement. Obviously, if anyone hires him, they’re interested in the outcome of said situation. It’s not that he’s ridiculously pricey or anything; after all, he has all the time in the world.

It’s just that he’s booked full most of the time.

After all, there’s only ever one humming man, and every day has eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds — give or take — and each of these seconds has millions and millions of variables and factors in it, and there are just as many interested people who want some of these changed to suit their own desires.

He’s booked in advance for aeons.

Picking off a piece of rock from the body of the tower, he flicks it off into the air.

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~ [Red] ~

Uthra, Female, Worker {7}

Location: The Tower of Isaiah

“COME ON!” yells Red, shooting up through the sky as the head of a trailing formation of comets that cut through the night as she and the other uthra launch toward Isaiah. “CHIEF!” yells the uthra, crashing into Isaiah’s arm as she reaches it.

“Red,” says Isaiah. “Move everyone from the village into the tower,” it instructs.

“FUCK THEM!” screams Red, her voice very unusual in its tone. Isaiah turns to look at her and then down at what she’s holding, pressing against it. “Something’s fucking wrong with Crystal!” yells the uthra, shoving him toward it.

Isaiah’s eyes open wide. “What happened?” it asks, its voice taking on an unusual unsteadiness as it looks at Crystal.

“We were just in the tower grabbing some asshole from the crusade, and he dropped!” Red grabs Isaiah as it holds Crystal, looking down at the still uthra in shocked confusion and watching for his chest to move but it never does. “FUCKING DO SOMETHING!” screams Red at Isaiah, her broken fingernails clawing into its alabaster skin, drawing blood. The others around her, Magenta and Beige, pull her back. “HELP HIM!”

Isaiah’s free hand is already over the uthra’s chest; a glowing, warm light releasing from its palm and pressing against Crystal’s body, washing over it and falling down toward the world below like dripping water.

Red pants, finally breathing for what seems like the first time in hours as she watches Isaiah heal Crystal. It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be okay. Crystal will be fine. Isaiah can do it. It’s just some weird shit. A little magic, and he’ll be back on his feet again. She has faith.

The uthra leans over, sweat and tears running down her face and mixing together to hide the shame of her crying as she gasps for air, her vision shaking.

This is her home; this is their home. After everything that happened during their years at the Emerald and everything that happened after that, this is the place they finally got to fix things and where she finally got to fix things. Those goddamned humans, they couldn’t just leave it alone. They can never leave it alone. She just wants to have a goddamn home for once.

She hates them so much.

Red grits her teeth, a sharp whistling moving through them as she tries to catch her breath through their tight clenching. She can’t stand them. It doesn’t matter what life she lives; humans always come and they take it from her. She hates them. She wishes they’d all just die.

Red looks back up at Isaiah, who has become double in her vision and then double again, before doubling again, and so on, until the air is full of nothing but a grand delirium of ten-thousand wings and eyes, blurred by water.

“It’s going to be okay, right?” asks Red, hunched over.

Isaiah looks back at her.

And the last thing that Red sees is a long, thin string of a thousand shades of crimson cutting through the air, cutting through her and the tower and Isaiah and everything else all around them, tying them to the spirit-world, indifferent to the white marble arms that shoot out to grab her as she falls from the sky, together with many other shades of color — like the petals of a tree come the end of autumn, having no choice but to finally fall from where they hung for so long despite their best efforts to cling on.

Without any more spectacle, ceremony, or farewell than that, as is so often the case in life, Red and many of the Uthra who had been touched by the spirit world through Witch Spillaholle’s curse die.

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~ [???] ~

Human, Female, Monk

Location: The Island

— A rock hits her on the head, having fallen from high up on the tower.

The monk winces, surprised, rubbing the sore spot and then looking up just in time to see a blur falling her way. She jumps to her feet, catching Orange, and the two of them tumble over the ground from the sudden impact, before coming to a rest.

“H-hey,” says Orange weakly, opening an eye to look at her.

“What’s wrong?!” asks the monk, looking at her in worry and then looking around the area to see if anyone is around to help. The uthra is missing most of her color, the bright orange hue having faded to that of a sickly yellow. “Are you okay?!”

“No,” replies Orange, shaking her head. Her wings have entirely vanished. “I had fun,” says the uthra.

“What?” asks the monk, looking her over for any injuries.

Orange looks up at her. “I had… Fff-”

— She stops.

“HEY!” yells the woman, having no idea what’s happening. She shakes the uthra before yelling for help and jumping to her feet, carrying her friend in her arms.

The monk takes another three steps before she falls over, her heart exploding in her chest, the two of them falling onto one another next to the water.

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~ [Rorate] ~

Dark-Elf, Female, Priestess

Location: The Tower of Isaiah

“Scion?!” yells Rorate, worried.

“I think it was too strong…” mumbles the elf, leaning back on a large pile of cushions. The air of the house atop the tower that they’re sharing is full of fragrant, herbal smoke. There’s an empty flask of mushroom-brew next to the elf. The two of them had been exploring the substance together, trying to identify further potency developments.

Scion starts giggling uncontrollably, flopping over on the cushions and pointing at her with a limp arm, the rest of her body pressing down onto the stones as if gravity were somehow affecting her and her alone more than everyone else right this instant.

“You look weird!” laughs the elf.

Rorate sighs, shaking her head. The effect of the brew comes in waves. Scion is probably at the peak of one right now. It’ll be about half an hour before she comes down enough from the effects to be able to effectively communicate.

The dark-elf priestess smiles, grabbing the blankets and pillows around her giggling friend to make sure she’s comfortable until then. The mushrooms have a way of talking to one, as strange as that sounds. They offer a lot of interesting insight, if one learns to listen to what they have to say. She’s collected entire journals and notebooks full of gospels and teachings relating to Isaiah and the ways of the tower.

Rorate sits down on a cushion, petting Scion’s head as she leans back, feeling a bit wobbly on her own feet. She must have somehow gotten some of the brew too, even if it’s Scion’s turn. This happens sometimes.

The dark-elf leans back, waiting to see what revelation is to come.

— A knife pierces her heart, and she lurches, clutching the spot on her chest where there is nothing to feel at all, and falls over to the ground, next to Scion, who has stopped giggling too.