Heaven in Cilifus

(8) The World's Mortuary 1

Ages and ages ago, the world was a rotten egg.

Yes! A rotten egg! With a petrified shell and chunky yolk like mud, huuuge like you wouldn't believe.

We call it the Churn nowadays, but back them names didn't mean a thing since the only things who could survive inside the egg were demons and filthy vermin.

But among that filth were glints of something beyond, shining fragments like diamonds in the silt. Demons avoided them like they ranked, so afraid of their true nature: Purity. Hope. A future without their grubby little mittens staining everything.

They taught the vermin to avoid it, and ate the ones who couldn't listen, ruling over that world of decay and stagnation for many, many years. Honestly? I don't blame them, I think I would have done the same if I was a wee maggot who didn't know any good from evil.

But they couldn't be everywhere. They couldn't guard every glint of Purity every hour of every day. So, once upon a time, a measly ringworm, with no arms and no legs and even less eyes, wandered too close and caught a whiff. Maybe it was hungry, or just couldn't bother with the demon's teachings, but it decided to take a bite.

Back then, names didn't mean anything. But for that little ringworm, whose true name suddenly shone in the glimmer, nothing else could matter as much.

That was Apodon, whose quest would shatter the egg's shell, and whose blood would purify its yolk. Our beloved grandparent, and our beloved world.

The Tower of Cilifus was thin, but its entrance stretched endlessly.

How did Francies know? He didn't. It was another sinister hunch. The moment he laid eyes on that yawning chasm, the stream of Guests and hand carts simply vanishing into the dark, he knew there wasn't a bottom to be found there.

If the other five had any such revelations, they weren't showing it. The veterans wouldn't, and neither would the Glass Wing who, recovered from her shock, was too busy being sulky to react. The fox was sweating a little, but her giant shadow? Might as well have been bored, so disinterested he looked.

"Alright, now that we're together, let's make things official with Cilifus Etiquette #1, introductions!" Menan said, beaming. "When you're about to join a new Party or meet another Guest in the field, it's polite to introduce yourself by showing your Invitation to them!"

Her fellow Stone Skin veteran held his hand towards them, palm up. A black blur opened in the air above. "By which we mean, you will do so whenever the situation requires, such as now. Hurry! You are being disrespectful!"

Menan stretched her hand next, summoning hers. The process looked different from Francies as well, a straight line elongating vertically before ripping itself wide into a plane of solid black.

They read:

Francies frowned, looked closer, then frowned harder. Surely the Tower hadn't been the one feeding them those last sentences?

He had a vague idea what a Trait was, at least. They had something to do with why Guests became such freakish monsters as they developed, some kind of tacked on effect they got with time and effort.

As none of the others volunteered to go next, he took the front. Not a letter in his had changed since he left South Lateno.

Next was the Glass Wing, who conjured hers over cupped hands with no real fanfare. It was relieving to see how it manifest exactly as his, and was written the exact same way with exception of the name: Lagalla Vi Llolalla. A mouthful for sure.

Two left. There was a moment of hesitation as the fox glanced at her guard, lasting maybe a couple seconds before he nodded and extended his hand first. A beat later, hers blinked into existence.

Bulwark, Rank 3 Vanguard

Scarlet, Rank 3 Enforcer

Francies didn't know where to start. Were they serious? Was that why that dour Fendrano had pilfered his Invitation? He didn't know he could change his Invitation, much less lie in them! Or would obscuring information be more accurate?

"Damn!" His eyes widened. "I ain't even figured out how to get these Rank thingies up, and here you both got it done twice already! Congratulations!"

Four carefully neutral glances told him perhaps that was not the appropriate reaction. Lagalla nodded along, but she was idly watching the foot traffic and not to be trusted.

Menan cleaned her throat. "Y-yes, very impressive. Anyway, I'm going to invite you all into our Party now. Don't send your Invitations away yet! You aren't ready to do everything through mental command yet. Pay attention now, you're going to see it coming in three, two..."

Like having a finger jabbing at his spine, a jolt crossed him. Words in leaking white ink appeared besides the poem.

Once everyone accepted, Menan clapper her hands. "Awesome! Makes the world look brighter, doesn't it?! Families aren't as connected as we are right now, and it only gets better the stronger you are!"

He didn't feel any different. There was a new hum so faint he just barely noticed it above the disembodied cacophony of Cilifus, but only if he focused. Much more apparent was the symbol that appeared right above his name in the Invitation: a doodle of two little boots inside a hexagon.

"You can display your party affiliations in different ways as you learn to manipulate your Invitation, but we shall not cover that sort of aesthetical tomfoolery in this expedition," Fendrano said. "Frankly, displaying anything but the strictly necessary is pageantry!"

"Which is to say, take it easy, alright? It ain't drawing a river across the meadow but let's get the basics down pat first!" Menan said.

There was no missing when the veterans joined the flow of people entering the Tower. To their right, others arrived like wasps from a nest, buzzing with anger and exhaustion, but carrying on with their weight's worth in sacks and boxes by hand, the lucky few through carts and weird, floating paraphernalia.

"Do these things even do anything?" Lagalla's voice gave away her fear, dry and hollow. "It's such a hassle having to squeeze it out all the time, like, might as well make it convenient..."

"Oh, it's just practice! Nobody is going to bother a newbie pulling theirs in and out for no reason. As for uses, well, it's essentially your main identity in Town, and—"

There was no slow disappearance, no fading in the dark. One step forward, and both instructors were gone, devoured by the gullet of Cilifus. Lagalla was next, again, not showing the slightest reaction before the bite.

Face to face with the void, he stopped dead. It tickled his face, sapping the heat from his skin. Awe reared its ugly head again as he was mesmerized by the sheer breadth of emptiness ahead. He hadn't prayed in years, but Mamogon shine on him, how could a horizon be so vast? How could a world never end?

He couldn't take it, stumbling back only to crash against a solid wall. Not stone, nor a good solid plank of wood, something smooth and warm, but as hard as any brick.

Slit eyes glared down at him, higher than the tips of his ears. He had just patted that fox, Scarlet, right in the stomach. "What exactly are you doing?"

Simple question with a simple answer. He could defuse the situation with a simple explanation, if there even was a situation to defuse.

Instead, he jumped in alarm, and nothingness embraced him.

How could Francies describe oblivion?

it's an obvious observation that living things relied on their senses, but he had never known how much he took them for granted. When he closed his eyes, light caressed his lids. In the silence of night, he always had the distant shuffling of other folks to stay grounded, or the rustling of beasts in the bushes to keep him alert. And of course, he was always touching something; if not the wind at his back, then the earth under his feet, the clothes over his skin, the tickling of hairs on his nape.

Oblivion was not pitch black nor cold. It had no color nor texture, no weight nor odor, no temperature, made no sound, allowed him no skin, no nerves to suffer the flaying, no Francies at all.

Still, he searched for himself, trashing and shouting without a mouth. Lungs collapsed with the lack of air, limbs spun in perfect circles around their joins, blood fully left him with every missed beat of his heart. He was sure his fingers were curling into limitless spirals, but he would never know.

An eternity passed in a second. Impression died as it realized its own falsehood.

Then suddenly snapped back.

Ideas roared back inside, overlapping limbs were forced apart, a mulch of organs the size of a pore expanded with an explosion, bones and flesh tied back inside an inviolable cast-mold, nerves shrunken from loss pricked and shocked back to work.

And at last—

—The taste of bile infested his tongue.

Took Francies an instant to realize he was the one squealing, as he tried to scream through the waves of stomach acid and half digested rations, as his body convulsed against the ground, as every inch of his body prickled in waves. He was being held steady, but his surroundings were a blur of flickers.

"Ah'm dying." His mouth burned. "Oh Mamogon, Ah'm dying, Ah'm dying, Ah'm—"

He got slapped in the face so hard he went slack. Whoever kept him from going down into his own grody was doing double duty, holding him aloft with a single arm over his chest.

"... Feeling better?" Springy, soft, that voice had to be Menan. "Goodness gracious, you scared the shit out of me! What in the Churn happened?!"

Good question, now that his faculties were coming back one by one. What happened? For a second it was torture, and then... he was fine? Worst he could describe it was that he didn't exist for a second, but he wasn't hurting anywhere, his extremities were all there, and he was surrounded by lively folk eating and boasting over drinks.

Actually, the sight of merry drunkards inside Cilifus was far weirder than being gone.

He had imagined it some desolate wasteland, or a barren valley of crags and putrid carcasses, but this was civilization, warm and abundant! Inside a chamber of white stone so vast the hundreds of patrolling fireflies could not cover it all, a whole market sprawled to as far as the eye could see, its bustle twice as dense, thrice as loud.

Bustle, yes, nothing else could describe it. Fat poultry being pit roasted, cauldrons of soup simmering on coals, walls of mead casks and wine bottles distributed to unbridled cackling, tarped kiosks where whole Parties gathered to compete over drinks and weaponry, or just watch lithe dancers work away in the thinnest ribbons of cloth. A shop rose not five hops away, filled to bursting with crystalline grey weaponry and marbled red swords, neighbored to a pavilion of pots, all from which a hare woman drew water with a slim tube into the waterskins of passersby.

Not a minute after barfing and he was starting to slobber. "Fuck me, I think I actually died."

"Not a promising answer, Francesto," Menan said with a frown.

"S-sorry, and just Francies, please," he said. "W-where are we? This can't be Cilifus, can it?"

"Sure is!" She lifted him by the pit with a single hand, gesturing widely with the other. "I welcome you all to the World's Mortuary, First Floor of Cilifus!"

"The more you talk, the less I believe."

A flutter of wings announced Lagalla's approach. "I-I'm not saying this to get away, are you sure he should come along? I don't think he's doing very well, like, actually."

"He's called Francies, by the by." Francies said. "And he appreciates the concern, but no way he is staying on the other side now that he saw this!"

She pursed her lips. "Yeah, b-but it's not going to be this cozy everywhere, right? And if w-we run into danger, we need everyone pulling their weights!"

"I'm fine." He waved her off. "I'll pull my weight alright, so long nobody tries to split my head in two again."

"No promises, but keep your reason and I will have no reason to beat it back inside." Fendrano said.

Watching Lagalla flutter from person to person like a headless fly helped him calm down. Whatever happened, it was over, no need for fuss. He was okay.

Less okay is that he was being watched. Not by the random Guests who he noticed had been laughing among themselves while throwing their Party glances, nor the poor Bloody Teeth fellow who had been left frying huge round insects not a foot's length away from his vomit.

Scarlet and Bulwark stood behind Fendrano, the latter taking in the view with wide eyes and crossed arms. The former could almost be mistaken for doing the same, if he hadn't caught her side-eyed stare. Pissed about the previous accident? Disappointed in him for losing his guts in the first toe of the trip? Crept the Churn out of him, regardless.

"Ah, never liked that type, gotta say. The witty fox among the imbecilic hen, watching the world from the swirl of a wine glass, calculating the value of every life that dares cross their path. Used to get handfuls of that sort from up north."

"Yah, can't say I'm much of a fan either." Francies shrunk.

A quick flutter of wing. "In better circumstances, I'd tell you to stay a street and a couple more away, hare dear, but circumstances are foul, aren't they? My advice is to pretend she doesn't exist until she remembers you do, then you kiss foot until she goes away."

"Don't think I will be ignoring that one any time soon, sorry."

If he was any stupider, he would be wondering if Lagalla had gone into a fit of coughs during his surreptitious investigation of the stronger newbies, but that rasp in her voice didn't sound like a temporary scratch. "I thought you Vielans were the best when it came to keeping your heads down and your ears up?"

From the corner of his eyes he caught both the veteran's eyes bulging out of their sockets.

"L-Lady Yigla! What a surprise!" Menan said. "We were just heading toward the Dote's supply depot, it's just that..."

"Don't bother coming with excuses when I didn't ask for any. I had business to attend to, so I've been on my feet for a couple hours now. Decided I might as well go meet the famous novices by myself."

Besides him, carrying a bag over twice her height, was a Glass Wing woman shorter than even Lagalla. White as milk with wings that did, in fact, resemble foggy glass, she was older than a forest and as wrinkled as he had ever seen, with cracked jaundiced mandibles and hair in a frizzed bun the color of iron. A vest of pearlescent scales drew the eye to her very curvaceous body. Seeing the attention shifting her way, she smiled.

"Thought it was joke, you know?" She swaggered into their midst like she owned the place. "If my sources weren't saying the news came from Loose Lips Handres themselves, I would have slept in today. And already getting tutored? That culling debacle should have held those feather-pushers for a tad longer, but guess there's no wising the greedy, is there?"

"Lady Yigla, I hope tidings have been favorable to you," Fendrano said, "but perhaps that is not an appropriate conversation topic to bring in front of—"

"Let me refresh your mind, Fendrano, an inappropriate topic is what the Laws of the Tower or my Lady Mon Krants the Shallow Abyss say is an inappropriate topic," Lady Yigla didn't look his way, dumping her baggage on the ground and untying its knots. "If neither told me to keep mum, then whatever I say is appropriate is. You four, come closer, I want to see your faces!"

The others approached, uncertain. She took a good look at each and nodded to herself.

"Yup! you inspire no confidence." She kicked the bag open, reached down, and pulled a long object out. "Half of you, anyway. The other half... well, I bet it's nothing you haven't heard already."

He didn't see her move. He knew the object was in his hands now because he felt it being pushed against his chest, his finger clutch around the handle by reflex. He blinked, a familiar comfort washing over him, but slightly hampered by the unexpected weight and rough texture.

It was a spear. A boar-spear, to be more specific, cut from a single piece of glittering gray crystal by ingenious minds who had only heard of boar-spears in passing, with a blade that teetered the edge between passable and blunt, and lugs that were closer to barbs or vestigial hooks.

"T-this is a spear?" Francies felt like an idiot asking it out loud, but not like he wasn't one after leaving good steel behind for this.

"That is one of many pieces of shit our fellow industrious Guilds think charity deserves, as told to me by a gentleman who was shortly taught how to speak with his heel lodged in his throat. These are for you, right?" She handled a bow, made of the same material as his spear, a full leather quiver, and a tiny knife in a regular leather scabbard to Lagalla.

"I-I guess." she said.

"As for you two, you brought your own toys, correct?"

Scarlet hesitated. "Y-yes. Both of us have learned to use our Armories, uh, Lady Yigla."

"As you should."

Scarlet's ears twitched, but she didn't talk back. Francies wouldn't either. There was a strange aura surrounding the old woman that made him feel like he was skulking in the presence of a massive beast. Attention was to be received carefully.

"L-Lady Yigla, wouldn't it be better if—" Menan tried, but a gesture cut her off.

"It wouldn't. If they make it back alive, they will have more than enough time to learn who I am and what I do. Until them, I'm not particularly keen on introducing myself to corpses."

Rolling the bag until she could fit it below her pit, she turned and made to leave, but stopped. She took a last glance at them, no, at him? "But welcome to my Morgue. Until you are ready to die, fell free to eat, drink, and enjoy yourselves to the fullest."

A blink, and she was gone, leaving four confused novices and two very flustered veterans behind.