I YET LIVE
MIGHTY AS THE MOUNTAINS
and as ponderous too
Low on creative juices due to work and also being generally satisfied with how things are going, feeling no need to summon the fullness of my wrath to correct the cultural misdemeanour that is xianxia.
~~~
WHERE ALL YOUR INFINITE DREAMS COME FINITELY TRUE
3848 words
~~~
It was early morning when he felt it, like a string flailing at his eyes.
Verschlengorge also halted, sensing in its occult intelligence something like kinship. Halfway clambered upon a chalky hills, it twisted to scan the horizon, crags like skyscraper fangs of a creator titan, the lazy dawn trailing down each skyward peak with honeyed paint.
"Eh?" Letrizia jiggled the joysticks. "Hey. Hey! Aw, come on!"
"Calm down," said Hunger, laying a hand on Letrizia's head. Oddly this instantly calmed her, for reasons she had declined to elucidate. "I feel something." Now that he concentrated, he found an instinctual knowledge of this strange bearing, an almost tangible thread. Into that thread he focused his attention and the spark of his power.
There was the groaning of tortured stone that precipitated a thunderclap chord. A nearby edifice, wrinkled with age, crumbled into sand fine as fluid that streamed into a yawning, mirror-smooth circular abyss. Even after many minutes, the sand did not abate, a sourceless cataract dyed in the pale blue cast of the shadow of dawn.
Hunger poked Gisena, who stirred with a start from her nap on the cot. She groaned, cracking her neck in a sinuous rotation, scratching and picking away the detritus of sleep from her orifices. Somehow, these motions, purified by
findross, were sensual and exotic to the eye. "What is it," she half-yawned, raising a fist to her lips to stifle it. Hunger noted a fresh layer of dark gloss had appeared on them. It was absurd.
"A mysterious pit. I feel an affinity for something within."
"Men often do."
"No, a literal hole in the ground. Look."
Gisena, in the middle of stretching in a slovenly yet enticing manner, took notice. "Oh, that's interesting! Let's go have a look."
"Uh, no?" Letrizia waved her hands. "Let's not go into the mysterious pit?"
"Letrizia," said Hunger, leaning toward her. "This is something I have to do."
"A-as a, a man?"
Weird direction, but sure. Hunger nodded. "Yes."
"Well, o-okay." She puffed her reddened cheeks, eyes filled with dewy determination. Hunger felt this was the awakening of something he should beware, but that was a problem for later. For now, there was a mysterious hole to enter.
"So eager to enter a hole." Gisena picked at the strap of her dress, revealing a tantalising triangle of pale flesh.
Hunger waved at her dismissively. "Hush, woman."
"I am a woman, thank you for noticing."
Jumping in the pit, the dimensions of the aperture widened, the stonefall receding from the dissipating column of light. For minutes they descended, until suddenly the Armament was standing, impactless, upon the floor, surrounded by a hill of grains glittering beneath their with a billion colours that blended in distance into the pure white. Darkness loomed deep and vacuous, the floor seeming an endless pane of compacted cloud that stretched beyond the radar returns of
Verschlengorge.
They pressed onward. Without texture or landmark, the Armament walked blindly, a lone island of illuminated stone without the intrusion of colour, guided only by Hunger's thread-bearing into the pure abyss.
"This is boring," Gisena complained. "It's just darkness. I have my eyelids for that!"
There was a sudden shockwave, soundless and overwhelming in force, shaking
Verschlengorge down to the deadbolts. The darkness deepened, cold to the eye. In two aspects darkness engendered fear: that of absence of light, anti-Pythagorean imprecision which diminished the appearance and certitude of objects within its shroud, and of obfuscation of danger and the possibility of terrors. In the second way was the darkness magnified; there seemed, without doubt, that beyond the boundary of light churned an unending maelstrom of malice, monstrosity beyond imagining, a writhing hell of hateful and wicked things that desired only to snuff the dim candle of safety and welcome the Armament and crew into its bleeding embrace.
"Oh yeah," said Gisena as Hunger glared, "the Apocryphal Curse."
"What should I do?" Letrizia cried, white-knuckled grip trembling. Gisena rubbed her head as though pacifying a rabbit.
"It's just an illusion," said Hunger. To all other senses hostility screamed its arrival, but the thread-spark betrayed its true absence.
Verschlengorge's eyes flashed sky-blue, and a blade of vision cleaved the darkness, stretching into infinity. The Armament crossed its claws across its heart, before sweeping them outward. Another pulse, and the light expanded, riding into the horizon east and west.
Darkness fled to reveal the empty space. There truly were no creatures, or any features. In the far mists, softened by distance and atmosphere, pillars like cliffs rose endlessly into faint needlepoints. No clouds, though there was space enough; insufficient humidity.
But most interesting of all was a tablet, inset in the floor, edges delineated only by faint gold embroidery, lines of metal worming through transparent stone. In dimension it was perfectly square, exactly four-hundred ninety-six feet each side, every inch scrawled with thin calligraphy that Hunger found he could read, each tangled snarl of stroke and incision unlocking in his eyes.
"This is it," he said. "Show it to me."
Verschlengorge's external cameras obliged, expanding the image until the uppermost corner was rendered visible, a square no larger than a fingernail, thick with symbols of abstract design arranged in seamless interlocking complexity. Hunger began reading. "The bearer of this token, whoso carries it as carries many Curses bestowed in bargain with the High One, is blessed with access into the hidden realm for himself or herself or themself or so on, with additional companions to a number not exceeding five save in instances of multitudinous unity..." He scanned the rest. It seemed to be more legalese, compacting screeds of conditions and exceptions with exquisite efficiency.
"It's a membership signet," he concluded. "For some sort of--"
~~~
"--exclusive space
what the."
They had been transported to some endless grid of white etched on black stone. Scattered across the plain, each within a square of white lines, were contraptions of every size and design: brazen chariots hammered into the countenance of bulls, hovering trilithons refulgent with crimson radiance, oozing flesh carved into hollow wheels, pirate galleons aloft on steel legs. Intermittent aisles would break the pattern, each filled with trolleys. The sky was dark, a black canvas punctured by a circle of stars like a ring of teethmarks, yet everything on ground was illuminated as though by afternoon day.
In one direction, there was a low brick wall with a gate. Oddly it did not diminish in size despite being at least several hundred miles away; Hunger felt, with certainty, it was only a short yet noticeable distance away. A small sign was pasted next to it, declaring, in the same mysterious glyphic hand as the tablet:
Please do not leave your engines running.
There was a gush of steam.
Verschlengorge, always thrumming with activity, descended onto its knees. It became quiet, then silent, the cockpit opening as the mechanoid titan shut off.
Letrizia slapped the power button several times. "Come on! What is this?"
"You always take us to such nice places," said Gisena. She seemed discomfited, and less alluring then usual. Thinking on it, Hunger himself felt lighter. The Curses he had taken on seemed phantasmal, their yoke lifted temporarily. Some sort of wide-spectrum nullification?
"What is this place?" Letrizia wondered. She stared at the various parked devices with unabashed intrigue.
"The hidden realm," said Hunger. "That tablet, it transported us here. I feel my Curses lightened but my power is..." He clenched his hand with a distorted screech of air. "I am also diminished, but not totally."
"I feel the same," said Gisena. She focused, to no effect. "My resilience is unchanged, but I can't turn my mind to hostile acts."
"Well I feel normal," Letrizia added. She fell into an introspective mood. "I guess I could go pee." When danger struck at any moment, it was important to take the opportunity for relief.
The water closet of the Armament remained functional, though in low-power mode. After Letrizia completed her business, they agreed to inspect the mysterious gate that stood only several tens of metres away. Descending the emergency ladder, Hunger commandeered a trolley for Letrizia to occupy; Gisena piggybacked. In this arrangement, Hunger began sprinting at superhuman speed.
Yet, despite several seconds of high-speed movement, Letrizia desperately gripping the wireframe, the gate only slightly receded in distance. Yet another distortion of spacetime? Hunger slowed down to a trot, then a walk, then the slowest possible ambulation imaginable for a man with one arm transporting two women. In all instances the rate of approach was identical.
"You can get off, Gisena, the speed doesn't matter."
"You won't even help me? Typical man." She tightened her grip.
Eventually they reached the gate, Gisena hopping off and helping Letrizia from her turtleback predicament. The gate, a frame of metal covered with a lone plank, seemed to suppress a riotous uproar of noise from behind it. From their position, no matter how far they stretched, they couldn't see over the low brick wall, nor through the blatant gaps in the gate's construction.
"Enough, we'll be here forever." Hunger pushed the gate open, stepping through.
He was beset by a cacophonous celebration of colour and noise, unyielding, overwhelming. Fireworks like crimson serpents spiraled through the sky, cones of light split into phantasmal gemstones, candybergs of spun sugar, sweet to the eye, drifting like clouds low enough to tear a piece. From every corner, brass polished to aureate sheen trumpeted anthems, enchanted harps self-plucking, flutes self-flauting. Black crags stood resolute against the night, foamy fountainheads streaming like white ribbons from their heads to water emerald groves baubled with gemstone fruit.
And all above them, written in gold, were the words
WELCOME TO CURSEDLAND.
"...That's a terrible name," said Letrizia.
There was a rapid series of footsteps as they were approached by a woman dressed in an elegant dark pantsuit, pink hair bound up in a neat ponytail. "Visitors! New visitors! I get to do the introduction!" She saluted them. "Hello, Cursebearer and companions! Welcome to CursedLand, where all your dreams come true, for reasonable definitions of "dream" and "true!" I'm Lilea, and I'm here to introduce you to the facilities at your disposal!"
"...What?" said Hunger.
"CursedLand is a terrible name," Letrizia repeated.
"Is it?" Lilea tilted her head. "What would you call it instead?" Despite her choice of words, Lilea appeared genuinely interested in her opinion.
"Are you--" Letrizia blinked, put on the spot. She frowned, mind whirring a mile a minute. "U-um, Superhappy Funtabulous Land."
"Nice improv," said Gisena.
"What is this place, exactly?" Hunger asked.
Lilea snapped to attention. With the air of officialdom, she clicked her heels and recited: "CursedLand was created by several High Cursebearers as a place of leisure and communion for their fellow Cursebearers, providing a constant of safety in these hard times. Within its cosmic boundary, no time passes, and most Curses are suspended to a level indistinguishable from normal mortal debilitation!"
A naked, heavily muscled man ran past, dripping oil. "I got my dick back! Hell yeah!" He rolled swiftly out of sight.
As Letrizia tried to pry Gisena's hand from her eyes, Lilea shook her head sadly. "The Brand of the Naturalist. It forbids the use of all synthetic artifice, including woven fibres. Sadly, some Curses cannot be suspended." She shrugged, and began to lead them to the most palatial section. "Oh well, let's go! I'm sure a Cursebearer of your calibre would like to see our Praxis Park! We have a Praxis Colosseum, Praxis Monopoly, Praxis Kart, Praxis Kart Double Dash--"
"I don't have access to the Praxis," said Hunger.
"Oh, I see!" Lilea made a hard turn, directing them away from the boulevards of obsidian and fountains of aqueous flame, transparent diamond statues struck through with veins of a stone that shimmered and twisted constantly like stardust suspended in ink, to the plainly adorned doors marked by inflated letters:
MORTAL DAYCARE ZONE. "All conceivable games played by humans are present and staffed. You can even win prizes and memorabilia, or even win the chance to have your likeness in the CurseMon Series!" She fanned out several cards, each depicting a person labeled as Cursebearer, their feats and strengths annotated numerically in accordance with some obscure schema. "Collect them all!"
"Ooh!" Gisena grabbed one. "This one has two thousand Attack Points. Lord Hunger, do you have two thousand Attack Points?"
"I could," said Hunger, somewhat petulantly. "You don't know that."
"How could I possibly know how many Attack Points you possess when you don't attack me?"
"Hmph. You want me to attack you?"
"I think you can be a little more rapacious." Gisena twisted her hair in her fingers.
~~~
"CursedLand isn't only for Cursebearers!" Lilea explained, leading them on a motorised buggy through a bowling alley of infinite length. "Access is also permitted to several non-affiliated persons if they prove trustworthy! It rarely happens though, and several other conditions must be met." She skidded to a halt next to a single lane, where several men were seated while another, head occupied with a half-helm, examined the distant pins with unerring focus. "Like here! Hello, there! I hope you're enjoying our facilities!"
"I cannot speak for the others, but I am enjoying the game," replied one man, brown-haired, dressed in Eastern clothing. He smiled kindly, poking his glasses. "Truly, the cosmos has more things than can be dreamt of. To find so many with the same will to power-- ah, if I had a heart it would be warmed!"
"We're glad you're enjoying your visit," Lilea said cheerily.
"Tch." Asiatic in features, save for a shock of orange hair, a different man slouched in disarray.
"Now, now, Kurosaki-kun. Whatever your grievances, you shouldn't be unkind to staff."
"Hey, fuck you, Aizen."
By the lane, the helmed man bowled. "Ah, a seven-ten split."
"Kurosaki-kun." A faint frown marred the man's peaceful expression; power like a looming thunderhead gathered in the space. "Mind your language."
"No, fuck this." Kurosaki stood up. "You kidnap me, take me to this weird-ass dimension, make me
bowl, and for what? You want me and Ishida to make up? I'd sooner cut my own throat!" A sonorous echo overlaid his words, a bestial gurgle resembling a bonfire crackle. "You killed my father!"
"No, Kurosaki-kun." The man raised a hand outstretched. "
I am your father."
"Fuck off."
"Haha. Yes, just a little jape to lighten the mood. But your father is still alive."
All the fight dissipated from Kurosaki. "What? That's bullshit."
"What need would I have to lie? Indeed, I could have killed him; however, Ishida-kun prevailed upon me to spare him, for your sake." He glanced to another bespectacled man, who looked placid in the face of this chaos. "Did you not inform him?"
Ishida raised his glasses. With unimpeachable gravitas, he said, "I forgot to tell him."
"Ishida-kun," Aizen chided, sounding disappointed.
There was a clatter of pins. "Ah, a spare."
"It genuinely slipped my mind. Cleaning up after Yhwach was more complex than I anticipated. I was wondering why he was so truculent, but to be fair, it's no less than his usual self."
"You--my father--my father's still alive?!" Kurosaki roared. "We mourned him! We buried his empty casket! Yuzu wouldn't stop crying for weeks!"
Very quietly, Lilea set the buggy to roll on. "We can't do anything for them," she whispered. "We're good but not that good."
~~~
"We also have several motorsports arenas. If equestrianism is your thing, the stables are for you! And our gokarting course is highly rated!"
Below them the scream of tires filled the air as several karts screeched by, engines livid with turbo flames as they slalomed through tarmac, forest, riverbed and flame. On the leaderboards, a stormy-looking fellow with an eyepatch climbed the ranks, standing proud from the hatch of his tank. His depiction was carried by a pair of women dressed like medieval reenactors.
Gisena latched onto Hunger. "I want one! Please please please?" She slung her arm around his neck, popping her Accursicle in her mouth.
Hunger looked down at the Accursed's melting chocolate visage. "I don't think they'll let you take one apart."
"We do!" Lilea corrected. "Some people find it very relaxing!"
A nearby man was bent over, retching, while some sort of Oriental zombie was fussing over him. "Master, please! Deep breaths, after me!"
"When my soul stops
eating itself I'll get right back to it." He doubled over, onto all fours, and disgorged a baseball-sized sphere. It plinked on the ground, its glassy surface scored with teethmarks and filled with glimmering stars. "What the fuck," he whispered hoarsely.
"Why, it's a Celestial Orb, master! The currency of the Heavens!"
"A what? Why?" The man boggled. "Wait, I just lost a spell. The one that shoots a light that makes you wanna die. Bleakblast or some
huuuugh." Plink-plonk fell another sphere of divinity.
A short woman in a motorcycle suit approached at speed. "Ehh? What's wrong with you? Eat something weird, hah?"
"Mistress Vane! Master fell victim to a paradox attack from his alternate self! Bravely he punished such impetuous daring, but not without loss!"
"HUURRGH." The man flipped the zombie off. "Kong if you were any more of an irritant speck in my life I'd be accumulating a shell of nacre around you and selling you to pharaohs."
"
Yah, that's gross!" The woman slapped him. "Don't talk about drowning men in your pearly secretions in front of your wife."
"I'll save my necklaces just for you, Meimei."
"Not in front of Kong!"
"Why? He's basically furniture, or a dog."
"It's true, Mistress," said the zombie. "Think of me as a convenient but nonsapient artifice designed to serve, like those incredible "vending machines" for acquiring sustenance through pure monetary transaction without interacting with another human!"
"You know," said Lilea, "every day is so exciting!" She smiled.
"Wait, so, I got a winning popsicle," said Letrizia, holding up her denuded paddle. The Accursed, rendered in cartoon interpretation, stared dourly from the birchwood stick. "It says I can trade it in for Accursed Favour?"
"Lucky you! Accursed Favour is like a wish upon a star, except real!"
~~~
"Some patrons like a quieter way to spend their time," said Lilea, walking them through the vast interior stadium. They passed a nine-storey indoor golf course, where a couple in matching tropical shirts were having a gentle argument ("Arthur, you can't just listen to everything I say, we're opponents." "Gotcha. Listen to everything you say." "
Arthur."), Lilea pointing out the attractions. "We have a variety of peaceful activities, such as minigolf,
hyakunin foosball, all the chess sequels, private cinemas, and even some TBD!"
"TBD?" asked Letrizia. "I want TBD! What's TBD?"
"We're still hashing it out. Over here is our quiet section, where visitors can quietly explore our information databases, or look at interesting birds. And
oh my GOD." Taken aback by this sudden exclamation, they watched Lilea suddenly sprint to slap a disheveled man carrying several foil packets.
Despite the impact ringing with thunderous volume, the man was unmoved, instead staring mournfully at the foil packets spilling from his arms. "Oh man, my ramens."
"Mister LAW!!" Lilea, indignation writ in every inch, assembled her meagre height into a fearsome stele of outrage. "How many times must I tell you
not to eat dry ramen in the library!! We have a restaurant for any cuisine you desire, if only you would consume it
on the premises!!! You can even have freshly cooked, professional ramen,
with free toppings and refills!!!! And SOUP!
"
"But I like eating ramen while reading," the man said diffidently, staring at the floor.
Lilea grabbed a foil packet; in her slender yet powerful grip the contents within cracked into powder. "Mister Law, please treat yourself with some justice. This is not ramen worthy of a Cursebearer." In response the man only hugged his foil packets tighter, secreting them into various pockets on his outfit. "Oh, Mister Law." She wrinkled her nose. "You smell like six asses."
"Sorry." His eyes roamed, until they landed on Gisena. He looked faintly ill, and averted his eyes skyward.
Lilea hurried back, looking contrite. "I'm terribly sorry! I've shown the wicked hand of my temper today. But this does conclude our tour!"
"...Are there no training areas?" Hunger asked.
Lilea tilted her head. "Amusement parks aren't gyms. No bodily changes within CursedLand persist outside of it. That's the price of its leisure, I'm afraid; the infinity of the zero. We also don't have hotels!" She glanced at Letrizia, and held a palm to disguise her lips. "Except those for, ahem, "whale music." But you can't stay there long-term anyway."
"What's a whale?" Gisena wondered.
"Well, thank you for your time," Hunger interrupted. "About the membership card, it's quite inconveniently sized...?"
"It should resize to fit its owner, which is now you. If there's anything else?"
"No," said Hunger.
"Yes," said Gisena. "Is there a gift store?"
~~~
The gift shop attendant seemed superfluous, given that nothing had a price, but her own enthused recommendations had sold Letrizia on making several purchases to show her dedication, to say nothing of her hair tips.
Laden with memorabilia, they walked back to
Verschlengorge. Letrizia was toying with an Accursed plushie, the side of her head occupied by a mask of the same. "Do you think it really shoots laser eyes?"
"I think there is a real chance you could display it in the manner of a crucifix and incinerate vampires," said Hunger.
"
Awesome," breathed Letrizia.
As the pilot clambered back into the giant robot, Gisena leaned in, taking Hunger into private conference. "Time doesn't pass here. There's no reason not to stay as long as you want."
Hunger looked at her. For a moment he marshaled his words, fleeting and sparse as they were, but shook his head. With a single movement he vaulted into the cockpit, where Letrizia was hanging the plushie on the posterior viewport screen.
Gisena climbed up herself. "You could have taken a real bath, at least! One arm can't wash itself, you know!"
"I suppose it would be nice not to taste soap, but sometimes we can't have what we want." Hunger settled into his seat. He felt a building energy,
Verschlengorge activating without issue. "Let's go--"
~~~
"--back."
They appeared beneath the morning sky. All around them the mountains had been erased, as though stamped flat. Indeed, Hunger lifted his hand, where a square of stone had ensconced itself. On the obverse were the dense golden letters proclaiming his passage into CursedLand, the reverse occupied by those mountains they had climbed only minutes before, snowcapped and cloud-swaddled.
"That's pretty neat," said Letrizia. Unobstructed,
Verschlengorge plotted a straight line across acres of bedrock.
"Mm." He slipped it into a pocket, settling back. "Are you waiting for something?"
"Can we go back sometime?"
Hunger closed his eyes, muttering oaths. "Sometime."
Letrizia pouted. "Promise?"
"If you're good."
"Hah!" The pilot cracked her neck. "I'm the
best."
~~~
AN: CursedLand takes no liability for loss of dreams in the uncaring face of the cosmos, but at least they have transfinite quantities of ice-cream.
Hm, I don't think Lilea would shout at Seram for something like this even if he's a multiple offender. She'd probably try to get through to him with diligent & gentle sincerity, perhaps by preparing him an expertly cooked (dry) ramen dish herself! And if that failed, still she would press on undeterred with kindness and forethought, while respecting his boundaries!
What a scary opponent.
CursedLand permits certain classes of visitors several privileges, including desired manner of address if not too onerous upon the staff. What tribulations have awakened such a desire in Mr Law I dare not speculate.
