The Mother of Monsters

A keening of confused shrieks and howls ripped through the passages behind the pair as they raced over traps and foot-level obstacles. Teyva stayed in the lead, slower than Azrael and also capable of seeing the outline of the traps before they were accidentally sprung. From an outsider looking in it appeared as if the two women were skipping and dancing down the hall instead of running for their lives. Far behind, coming down from the surface, they could hear the horde of lesser wightlings hurtling through the passages; eager to rip them limb from limb.

“We’re going to have to fight those things eventually!” Azrael shouted, leaping over another trap that Teyva pointed out. She glanced over her shoulder and was relieved to not see their pursuers just yet.

“Cross that bridge when we get there! There’s got to be an end to all this! We find it, we cut it off from the source. Right Nephral?” Teyva called back, sliding to a stop as the tunnel abruptly turned right and resumed her dead sprint. She glanced at her stamina and cringed. Even with her increased endurance, she hadn’t bumped it over one hundred yet. She could already feel her chest growing warmer as her lungs began to burn.

“Correct, mother! Aberrations such as this always have a source! Destroy the source and that will end the infestation; likely taking the living aberrations with it!” He shouted, the sound of the approaching monsters growing louder by the instant. The sound was already making it difficult to concentrate for Teyva while she navigated around obstacle after obstacle. Each faded blue line blurred together until she felt something slip beneath her feet. She blinked as the floor shifted, her eyes going wide.

“I screwed up!” Teyva warned, diving forward. Azrael was already hot on her tail, rushing past the point where Teyva had stumbled. Behind the two of them, dark fluid began to bubble up from the ground, then more, and even more. Soon the stench of crude oil was so pungent that even the cloth masks they were wearing couldn’t suppress the smell. Teyva hit the ground and splashed into the thick, slick fluid, her body sliding several feet while the hall filled higher and higher.

A flash flood of oil erupted through the passage, showing the two women further down and triggering more and more of the traps as they went. More openings gave way to more oil until they were quite literally being carried down the passage on a stream of vile liquid. Teyva held her breath, closing her eyes and trying not to get any of it in her nose. Azrael did the same, the two crashing into walls and outcropped roots. The rushing fluids' speed rose higher and higher, the rush of water turning into a roar that echoed around them. Teyva felt herself getting pulled further and further, faster and faster.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could feel the Mockeries’ confusion and panic, fortunately, their bodies didn’t have mouths or eyes if they did not want to, so for them, it wasn’t much of an issue. Teyva’s concerns turned toward Nephral, who had leaped from her shoulder when she was swept away. She tried to steady herself in the rushing liquid even as her lungs began to strain against her held breath. She opened her eyes for an instant, catching sight of the white feline flying through the air above her. He was saying something but she couldn’t hear him. He darted forward and she closed her eyes again, letting the current turn her around and opened her eyes.

End of the line. Teyva saw the end of the passage only a heartbeat before she hit it, her world spinning as the impact nearly knocked her out. The surge pulled her under, her foot catching against something smooth and flat at ground level. Darkness and the rush of oil swallowed her up. She could feel the fluid in her nose. A single attempted breath and she would be dead. She curled into a ball, desperate to hold on for even a few more seconds.

The impact against the ground forced her to take a breath. Air, if tainted by the reek of oil, filled her lungs as she slid across solid ground. Somewhere nearby she heard Azrael coughing and spitting. Teyva forced herself to her knees, shaking her head to get some of the oil off of her face. Her hair and body were completely saturated. She didn’t know what the consequences of exposure were but she was sure they weren’t good. She coughed, calling out to Azrael as her vision swam dizzily.

“You good?” Teyva shouted.

Azrael swore colorfully in her native tongue.

“Great!” She laughed, pulling herself up to a standing position. She shook out her hands and grunted when a prompt flashed in her vision.

Teyva made a face; “Oh, now you work,” she grumbled, whipping her hands to try to get more of the sludge off. She glanced around and spotted Azrael doing the same, trying to get the ooze off her skin as best as she could. She muttered a spell and wind whipped up around her scattering some of it out of her hair but most of the gunk still clung to their bodies. Not far from her Nephral soared in a circle overhead before divebombing his mother. He stopped short of landing on her, the strong scent of the oil driving him back. “Sorry mother, it’s too much.”

“We won’t last long like this,” Azrael said, walking over, “Maybe a few hours before we start getting sick.”

The two of them looked back at the way they had come in. From what they could see beneath the steady flow of crude oil, there was a stairwell going up and into the passage, they had come from. The oil itself flowed off to the left and right from the stairs, guided by the way they had been built into deep channels that began to wrap around the outer wall of this new room going either direction. That was when the three of them stopped to take in their surroundings.

The room was enormous and circular, dozens of large rocks and formations jutted out of the ground here and there on the floor at various heights. The walls were almost entirely formed out of the Great Tree’s root system and any walls that were exposed were smooth and dark though they were too far away to get a proper look at. Across the dirt floor were dozens of sets of bones, all of them appearing to be wolves. Here and there one could spot the evidence of a fight that had taken place, deep gouges in stone and darkened spots where blood had dried and become acrid.

Above them, though, was the greatest sight of them all. The base of the great tree formed the ceiling of the room. And yet, not even the enormous natural dome was significant enough to distract from the horrific centerpiece that brought it all together; a nightmare that put the Madcaller to shame. Hanging above them was a single long root that writhed and twisted as if it was very much alive and conscious. The entire body of the thing was jet black with purple veins pulsing with a pale light that looked familiar to Teyva. Along its body, spikes made of bone protruded here and there in a random pattern, jutting through the loops of an enormous chain that wrapped up to the base of the unholy thing. It coiled its mass, twisting until the dangling tip turned in their direction.

Teyva’s entire body froze. Her blood went cold. Her mind hurtled backward in time. Her heart stopped. Everything stopped. At that moment, nothing terrified her more in the entire universe. She had never felt so much fear in her entire life. She felt her fingers go numb as they bit into her palms, tightening harder and harder as her mind tried to fight back with rage. She looked up into those rectangular, soulless, glowing white eyes and that broken cracked mouth and felt tears flooding down her cheeks. The face caught within the maw of the abomination stared down at her without an ounce of recognition. It possessed no emotion, no feelings, no remorse, it simply existed. She choked, trying to get the words out around a thickening tongue. All her mind could focus on was the living embodiment of all of her trauma.

She barely willed herself to use her journal.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She had beaten that thing. She had endured death after death after death at the hands of the Tomb Guardian in the Queen’s Tomb. She had suffered a fate so unimaginable she barely understood why her mind was still whole. She reached up and gripped at her head, feeling a headache coming on as the pain of every single death flashed before her eyes in an instant. She pressed her head to the ground, nausea building in her throat. She could hear the roar of wind and the eerie tone of the creature using its aurora power. She could feel herself waking again and again in that sarcophagus. She could see its broken, twisted body standing there, heartlessly taking her life.

She heard her screams, the sobbing, and retching, she could feel the guardian’s arm in her hand as she beat it over and over. She heard other sounds too. Her name. Was that her name? Why had she even picked that name in the first place? What did she even know about any of this? The Labyrinthians, the Tombs, the people of this world, any of it! Why had she felt so compelled to take that name?

“Teyva!” Azrael shouted, grabbing her shoulder.

Teyva yanked her arm away and staggered, “Don’t call me that!”

“Teyva what is that thing?” Azrael shouted again, trying to reach for her.

“I said don’t-” She gasped, the headache coming in even harder. Something was screaming at the back of her mind. Like something, she’d forgotten. Something so very important. “Why don’t I remember the pain?” Teyva asked.

“Teyva?”

Teyva looked up at the monster, throwing her hands out, “What the hell are you?! Why don’t I remember it? I should be scarred for life! I should be- I should be dead! Why aren’t I dead? What were you guarding anyway? She was dead! Forgotten! That’s what the walls said!”

A thought occurred to her, “That’s what the walls said.”

The nightmare swiveled and stared down at her, unmoved by her words. Of course, it wasn’t. The tomb guardian before hadn’t reacted to her in any way besides trying to kill her, why would this one be any different? She spat on the ground.

“You know what I think?” She shouted at the guardian, with no other outlet to throw her rage at, “I think you guardians are there to keep something in, not out! I think the Labyrinthians did something terrible! Yeah, I do! I remember seeing things, horrible things! I saw them when I turned into this… whatever the hell I am!” She bore her pointed teeth and flashed her claws at the boss.

“I bet Teyva Rani wasn’t all that great! That’s right I said it! What are you going to do about it you stupid, ugly, phallic piece of-” She felt something grab her arm and pull, hard. She blinked and turned to see Azrael dragging her with all speed toward one of the nearest stone formations. Her mind whirled again, trying to catch up, trying to settle. Azrael? Azrael was her friend. Azrael had helped her. Helped her out of the tomb. They’d traveled together.

A hard crack echoed through the chamber what looked like an enormous length of glowing chain struck the ground where Teyva had been standing. At the same time, Azrael struck Teyva across the face.

“Snap out of it!” Azrael shouted, “Focus Teyva! Wake up!”

Teyva blinked, the boiling rage subsiding but still burning beneath the surface. She cleared her throat and tried to breathe. It had all come back to her after she had looked that creature in the eyes and it all began to make sense. The Tutorial Protections hadn’t just been against dying, they’d been holding her mind together too! She should have felt those deaths but she had no memory of them. Nothing. Just a flash of momentary pain and then darkness. This system had played with her mind since the beginning, with every death, every aspect stone, every transformation. The rage boiled back up before simmering again, another breath evening her out.

“Sorry. Thanks. Everything from the tomb just came back to me,” She managed, looking down at her hands, “I’m so… angry,” Teyva muttered through her teeth.

“What happened to you? What is that thing?”

“You saw its face?” Teyva said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.

“Yes?"

“That, Azrael, was a tomb guardian.”