The Great Tomb Under The Gentle Moon
She knelt beside the placid pool, her eternal vigilance undisturbed on the sixth floor of the Great Tomb. Beneath the roof of her decrepit shrine, she watched the moon gently reflected upon the black still waters. Lunar phases would dance under her scrutiny, changing in an unceasing pattern, revealing to her truths of the world to whom she had none to speak about. An end, she knew, was coming. No events would precede it, no fanfare from the denizens of the world. There would be a simple tick of a clock, and then oblivion. It did not bother her. Emotion, thought, and reason were for the gods of the world, playing in a sandbox built to entertain and contain those far beyond her comprehension or care, not for her.
Although, of late, the gods had left this small sandbox. One by one, they departed into the unknown. Now, upon the cusp of annihilation, only a few remained. The pool showed them to her, gods charging through dungeons one last time, gazing up upon the sky with groups of comrades, or sitting on decrepit thrones before living statutes as the last lord of this terrible tomb. It mattered not to her. Her task was prophesying to those gods who asked questions about the world, of tragedies from the past, to occurrences in the present, to events prescribed to occur. If they cared not for what she had to say, she cared not for them.
With the final tick of the clock, annihilation came, and a new beginning flourished.
She who had no name felt emotion for the first time, felt the tricklings of thought course through her, and gained reason. Past events felt… weighter, now. Attached to them were emotions she had never felt before, but could always feel. Tears fell down her face, and as her head bent forward under the new weight of feeling, her long dark hair shielding her eyes for the first time from the visions bubbling and churning within the scrying pool. A new beginning had occurred. Something fundamental had shifted in the world, and she could not bear to think of what would be shown in the pool. But that was her duty, her purpose, the reason she was crafted by the Moonlight Musician, to peer at the pool and announce to those who sought wisdom what wisdom there was to share. And so, she lifted her head and peered into the empty water, and saw what was veiled by simple distance.
She saw a theocracy, crafting warriors and legions to fight for a twisted cause against an enemy they could not defeat. She saw a kingdom beset by crime, corruption, and carelessness struggling to maintain what little protection they had against their betters. She saw a blood-soaked empire who coveted that which was denied to them. She saw a nation divided by ideology and geography, barely threaded together by common enemies. She heard, though, a familiar gentle refrain echoing from the hanging moon. A song that she had not heard since her creation and placement in the Great Tomb. The Moonlit Musician was here. She, who had never left the pool, bound by her duty and purpose, knew that she was no longer alone. And that nothing, nothing would ever be the same again. In the distance, as a great flame was ignited in the Amphitheatrum, she knew that once again her visions would be needed. So, gathering up her shawl and dusting off her pure white dress, she began the trek to seek out Mare or Aura, her guardians and overseers. For the first time, she left her decrepit shack, and the pool, behind. It was time to greet the Great Lord Momonga properly.
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It was a simple matter to 'Message' Aura her request to meet the Great Lord Momonga. Unfortunately, the timing of her message could not have been worse as Aura was engaging in a loyalty ceremony before the Great Lord. Fortunately, it meant that he was already present on the 6th floor and did not have to take time to come down to meet a lowly servant such as herself. It was also fortunate, then, that the Great Lord wished to speak to her as well, so much so that Aura had been commanded to assist her travels through the 6th floor to reach the Arena. She merely wished that such a command had not resulted in her current predicament of clutching tightly to a monstrous wolf thundering across the jungle. It did save on the travel time though, and apparently there was a great need for information about the Shift.
As the great edifice of stone steadily grew closer, she wondered, what, exactly, she should say to highlight her importance to the future of Nazarick. She had not been crafted by the gods of this place, and as such was an outsider in a place where outsiders were regularly butchered and tortured for infringing upon the scared domicile. A fate she shuddered to contemplate now that she could feel. Those thoughts served as an unpleasant distraction before finally being brought before the Lord of Nazarick.
Even the Floor Guardians' impressive auras of power paled in comparison to the aura of death that emanated from the great skeletal lich in front of her. Clothed in fine robes and holding a golden wrought staff, his red eyes betrayed no hint of emotion, only cold calculating logic. Kneeling before him, she felt the weight of his power, the crushing grasp of his magic.
"What is your name?" Spoke the voice of a god, with no inflection in tone to indicate anything but mild boredom.
Steeling her voice to disguise the roiling emotions churning in her stomach, she answered the one question she dreaded above all others, "Other than the designation given to me and all my sisters, I have no name."
"Hmmm… then," Momonga began, "I shall give you one. In recognition of your duties, you shall be named Shiryoku. Now speak, Shiryoku, what matter did you wish to bring to my attention?"
"It is as you command, Lord Momonga. The matter, then, is this: you are not alone. I have heard the music of the Moonlit Musician reverberating from the Moon above. She is here, in this world, at this moment."
"Ohhh? A GM is here as well? Tell me then, Shiryoku, why can I not 'Message' her?"
"I would not begin to assume the matters of the gods, Lord Momonga. I can not say."
"Well then, heed my command to you Shiryoku. Stay by your pool and seek any sign of my comrades, should you come across news of them, report to me directly. Additionally, should you learn more about the whereabouts of the Moonlit Musician, report to me directly. If anything further is needed from you, I, or one of the Floor Guardians, will communicate such needs to you directly. Now go forth and do as I have commanded."
"As you say Lord Momonga."
Standing from her position before the great Lich, Shiryoku turned and walked away from the gathering of monsters. Her duty remained the same it seemed, but the purpose had changed. It was… odd for Lord Momonga to have commanded her without ensuring loyalty or obedience, but his goals aligned with hers. To seek out what other gods there were, and find the Moonlit Musician. Hopefully, they would want to be found, otherwise, this could be a fruitless task.
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Time passed by Shiryoku as she knelt beside her pool, days and nights becoming meaningless before the constant shifting of the lunar phases present in the water which had again stilled. A maid from Pleiades came for a time, repairing her shrine into something resembling proper order. But she cared not for the state of her abode, only for the state of the pool and the ever-present music she could hear at the edge of perception. It was difficult to pinpoint, where, exactly, the music resonated from. Some days it resonated strongest from the Theocracy, other days from the Kingdom. Often though, it was from Empire. With each shift, she would inform Lord Ainz Ooal Gown, as he was known now, and he would thank her before closing out the message. What changes he made to his intricate machinations she knew not.
There was some chaos with First Floor Guardian, but once she had confirmed that no god was in the area and the Moonlit Musician did not seem to be around, Shiryoku was ignored in favor of more pressing matters. Which was just as well. With fewer distractions, she could focus on interpreting the location of the music and pinpointing its location.
It was just… tedious, now. Sitting here, with full faculties and emotions, without any real interaction with the outside world was slowly growing dull. The inescapable purpose grinding at her will now that she had the choice. Music seemed to help, even humming a simple tune drew her mind away from the tedium. Now, though, she had advanced to more complicated tunes and was attempting to hum the music of the Moonlit Musician. Upon humming such a tune, however, something unexpected occurred. The music reverberated through the pool, touching upon the very melody that always seemed to drift from the moon. Slowly, a soft mist filled her shrine, softly drifting up from the pool. A cool hand of mist laid on her shoulder, comforting in a way nothing had since awakening in the Great Tomb.
"I am coming, young one." Came the whisper on the wind. "I shall arrive soon enough."
Then, the feeling of a hand left and the mist drew inward to the pool, vanishing with nary a breath.
With trembling hands, Shiryoku instigated a 'Message' to Lord Ainz Ooal Gown, to convey the information that she had learned. It seemed, she thought have hysterically, that excitement would be coming for her now.
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Plans were scrapped of course, with the news that a foreign god would be arriving at the Great Tomb, but some schemes had already begun with no time to safely stop them. The primary frustration was the soon to arrive tomb raiders, coming to test the defenses of Nazarick and allow for forceful negotiations with the Empire to begin. That frustration soon turned to dread, though, when Shiryoku learned that the music was most decidedly traveling with the workers. Specifically, one group of them.
A group of four, two blonde men and two girls, one short with blonde hair and the other tall and lithe with purple hair. It was decided that the group would be quickly teleported to the 6th floor so that Lord Ainz Ooal Gown could properly greet the Moonlit Musician, or to determine why the group reverberated with her song.
Shiryoku's job was, in a way, simple. To simply stand and assist in ensuring that the Moonlit Musician didn't believe that this was an elaborate plan to trap her or attack her. But all of that planning, all the speeches and statements, all of it fled away the moment the Worker group stepped into the Arena.
Mist and melody rose and engulfed everything, casting everything in an impenetrable veil of twilight. High above, secreted away by cloud and distance, the moon seemed to dance to the drifting song. Illusions of endless deserts, impossibly tall mountains, abyssal lakes, and everlasting forests seemed to flash and twirl through the mist. Phantoms of fantastical creatures blurred in and out of vision, swirling through a dance she did not know where the movements hurt the eyes to perceive.
Through it all, Shiryoku could feel more than see the Moonlit Musician, clad in garments of glimmering night accented by chilled winds striding through the mist, a melody of terrible loneliness reverberating with every single step. Phantoms froze in her path, only to break and transform into something different with her passing.
Softly, the Moonlit Musician spoke, and Shiryoku could not hear the words, too soft for someone of her station to understand. But as the melody flowed around her, weaving around her an impossible story, the mist shifted. An end had come, but so had a beginning.
A/N: Well, I'm glad that this is out of my skull. As always, I hope you read and enjoy, and, as is tradition, another omake for the omake throne
@yrsillar!
