Ch 11

Casimer, till very recently in his life, had been a very calm being, drifting as though in a deep, dark sleep, governed by a steady thrum of instincts; Build, Attract, Consume, Change, Corrupt, Spread; Build, Attract ect ect. There was no room or need for rational thought, foresight or. . . artistic flare.

“No,” Melchsee said, pulling power from her host and wiping out the fleshy monstrosity he had created.

“What was wrong with this one?” Casimer said, waves of red light playing across his surface. It had been a creature which crossed the most dangerous traits of a slug and a frog without any respect for the source material.

“It was disgusting,” Melchsee said, repeating her criticism, voice tinged with female sentiment “Didn't you hear the sounds it was making?”

“The more noise it makes,” Casimer began to explain, patiently.

“No. More. Bugs,” Melchsee said, pinching the bridge of her nose and then rubbing the opal in her forehead. Behind her, Casimer created a new monster, quick and silent.

“No more bugs,” a roughly humanoid, fleshy horror made from worm muscle with a pebble in it's forehead said, it's loose mouth unable to articulate properly; it's body lacking any form of skeleton drooped and flopped over limp immediately after it's proclamation. Melchsee jumped, startled by the sudden appearance, then her eyes flashed with anger and she destroyed it. Casimer began laughing.

“You should see how you jumped,” he buzzed. Melchsee vanished, reappearing outside, high above, already calming down.

The two of them had been in a structure a little larger than the Bug Dungeon, though this one was a smooth cylinder of stone with a pyramid top, hollow on the inside. Casimer and Melchsee, who's sizes could be measured in increments of inches, felt as though they had been inside of a vast and cavernous space. The structure was built of tiny, half inch bricks of quartz, expertly laid and sturdier then they appeared. The darkness of the night was lit by the structure, which emitted a soft glow.

Casimer ceased looking through Melchsee's eyes, marveling at the unexpected ability he had gained after allowing Melchsee into his mind, an event which simultaneously allowed him to enter hers as well. She was a strange creature, he had to admit that. Every time he felt her mind, he knew with iron-clad certainty that she could crush his feeble intellect in a heart-beat. He also knew, with equal certainty, that she would never do such a thing, as it would mean her death.

The interior of his new. . . he hesitated to refer to it as a dungeon, was lined with grassy moss, which swayed in a gentle spiraling wind. He felt a deep, hungry void inside of himself, and lamented Melchsee's policy of 'No More Bugs'. They were food, and he wished to eat, so what did it matter what they were?

Melchsee reappeared abruptly, looking pleased with herself.

“My lord,” she began “I have been monitoring your thoughts, and I can say with extreme confidence that your question has an answer.”

“Oh?” Casimer asked, feeling her press a complicated thought against his mind, and resisting her out of juvenile spite.

“Yes,” she said, lessening the pressure, changing tactics and conjuring up a blue window. On it was a diagram of the crystal fortress, rendered in three dimensions. “Your main problem is that you've been eating nothing but bug brains, aside from that frog, and I don't think you actually got to eat that one."

“No,” Casimer said, examining the window and zooming it out, revealing the surrounding terrain “It died outside after it's rampage, and a spider dragged it back in. I absorbed the body.”

“Well, my lord, there is far more out there than insects. How large could you realistically make yourself?”

Casimer, having taken in the information of the surrounding land, raised a perfect replica of it from the ground, scaled down to fit between the two of them. He raised a ring which was roughly equal to the perimeter of the campsite. “My influence weakens with distance, and it ends at the wall there.”

“Well that's very good,” Melchsee said, turning the blue screen into a cube, and highlighting the crystal fortress inside of it. “There's something I'd like to try with you, if you don't mind.”

A blue window appeared inside of Casimer's mind.

You have been issued a quest!

Food Pyramid I

There are an endless variety of creatures in this world, and all of them are more delicious than the last. Attract and successfully consume at least one of them. Must be higher order being than: insect

Reward: Increased Power and Influence

“Are you responsible for this,” Casimer asked, attempting to shake the visualization, and finding it very difficult to accomplish “How do I make this go away? I can't see anything.”

“Oh, that?” Melchsee asked, briefly focusing on his mind “It's one of my automatic functions, a sort of reminder system my previous employer found enjoyable. You have to accept the quest if you want it to go away,” she said slyly.

“Fine,” Casimer said “I accept it!”

Congratulations! You have accepted the quest Food Pyramid I

The window vanished, and in the bottom corner of his mind, an unobtrusive glowing blue square appeared, with an exclamation mark on it that blinked occasionally.

“How do I make that go away?” Casimer asked, red light playing across his surface.

“Why, you have to complete the quest, of course.”

–

Casimer buzzed and hissed, the light from the quest indicator like a flashlight shining into his eyes, preventing him from drifting into blank, peaceful thoughtlessness. With an effort of will he created a cloud inside the crystal fortress. It was black, tiny bolts of static arc'd through it as it churned in a tight, complicated torus pattern. The sharp spire of earth that held casimer extended up and up, until about three quarters of the way, where another spire, this one of quartz, reached down and encased the hard, wrinkled gem. It pulled him up and came to a rest with him in the direct center of the spiraling clouds. Small threads of hair thin light flowed in a spiral from the smooth inner edges of the storm, being absorbed by Casimer. There was a small, micro boom of thunder, and then the rain began to fall, a light mist that drifted down.

Outside, a sink hole with a radius of about one and a half feet eroded away, the dirt vanishing to who knows where. A bowl of rough dirt with a hole in the center was left, and very slowly, mist rose from it, a mist that clung to the ground, falling and coating it with ice. The hole slowly extended down, then began to curve, then extended up towards the Crystal Fortress. It hesitated for a moment, then punctured the bottom, and water silently flowed through it, filling the pond outside.

The water of the pond emitted a soft, sturdy glow, and a light mist rose from it like steam that evaporated some distance away. The scent of the water did not go unnoticed as it drifted down and around the mountain, a scent familiar and yet unlike anything ever smelled before. A nearby scorpion made a steady beeline, and hours later, arrived.

It marched the perimeter, heavy fog condensing on it's exoskeleton as it drank it in. The scorpions compound eyes began to glow red, and it's movements increased in speed. Casimer couldn't help himself, mutating the bug to make it a bit bigger.

A small desert mouse carelessly crawled into the area from the opposite side of the scorpion. It was smaller than the scorpion, had tan fur with a black and white undercoat, and black beady eyes. The scorpion saw the mouse the same time the mouse saw the scorpion.

Then, the strangest thing happened. Casimer felt from the mouse a wave of icy sensation, felt it as though he were experiencing it himself. It was a feeling so intense, so terrible, that Casimer was compelled to conceal and hide himself, embedding himself inside of a foot of solid quartz. It was a feeling which promised the end of his life, given name by a whispered word from Melchsee. Fear. The mouse was paralyzed with it, the scorpion advancing for an easy kill.

Abruptly, the fear ignited, a polarity shift of fire and rage. Before, Casimer had been compelled to hide, yet now all he wanted to do was act, to lay waste to anything and everything which ever dared to make him feel afraid. Melchsee, in the back of his mind, exclaimed in surprise, then whispered another word. Courage.

The mouse charged the scorpion and began hopping about, tiny, hateful squeaks coming from it as it dodged the rapidly stinging tail of the scorpion, leaping in and biting, hurting the insect a little more with each strike, crippling several legs. The scorpion scored a hit with it's tail, and Casimer felt the hot pain and the venom that managed to enter the mouse before it got away. Some strange quirk of the mouse's bio-chemistry converted the pain into numb, narcotic pleasure, and the savage courage the mouse emitted grew in magnitude. With a clever series of hops, the mouse made it behind the scorpion and latched onto its tail, furiously biting, chewing the stinger clean off.

The scorpion leaped, red eyes flaring bright, knocking the mouse off of it's body. It snapped it's pincers menacingly and charged, the mouse charging as well. Casimer felt the pumping of hot blood, the adrenaline, the pain, the need to survive and further the need to conquer. The tiny mouse's hands grabbed one of the pincers on impact, and it began to furiously chew and shake it's head as it removed it, ignoring the other claw that snipped through it's side. The mouse hopped away, then back on, landing on the scorpions back and gnawing its face as the useless tail thrashed and beat the mouse, lacking a stinger. A final bite, an audible crunch, and the scorpion ceased moving.

The mouse, injured and tired, stood on it's hind legs, standing atop the massive scorpion, threw back it's head and let loose a high pitched, ghostly howl. It howled again and again, the sound so small, yet packed full of meaning. Having finished vocalizing it's defiance, the mouse confidently walked to the pond, dipping it's head down to take a drink.

It died quickly, the tongue of the toad grabbing it and pulling it down to the depths, neck broken and body limp. The corpse vanished as Casimer devoured the mind of the small mammal, understanding flooding him as his gem began to swell, every so slightly.

Casimer, overwhelmed and burning with life he had never felt before, shook the air and rattled the earth, howling at the starry, moonless night.