60. Aftermath

When Mercy goes from sitting to standing without seeming to pass through the intervening states you start, almost falling over.

When she turns a huge smile at you, you feel your heart stutter.

“She made it.”

The words wash over you like the tide.

“She fucking made it! I can feel her!”

Your jaw moves but no sound comes out. Mercy laughs, a pure, delighted laugh.

“Come on you twit! Come on!”

You stand, shaking like a large, red, winged dog.

“Where..?” Your brain is still rebooting, but Mercy seems to know what you mean. Not that there could be that much doubt. She grabs you around the waist and unceremoniously launches you out of the pit, leaping up a second later.

“In her room, in the cells, come on!”

You spare a glance over your shoulder as you follow the exuberant half-dryad. Sapphire manages a small smile as you meet her eyes. Feathers is already standing, murmuring to the remaining goblins.

“Come on!”

You turn again and follow Mercy's excited yelling, down the steps and into the jail.

It's exactly as you left it, bar Van Gabriel's loot bag and the giant spider both having vanished. Still a small pool of blood under the ceiling hole which you give a wide berth. Still a broken lever on the wall. Still furs covering on cell door to give those inside some privacy. Mercy reaches for them before hesitating at the last moment, looking around at you.

“Maybe you should go in first?”

You give her a distracted nod and go to move past her while she opens the door for you.

The inside is dark, the torch extinguished. If it wasn't for the sound of breathing, you're not sure you'd be able to pinpoint Amanda's location, squashed into the space between the foot of her bed and the wall as she is.

“Amanda?” you breathe, not quite sure you can believe it without conformation from her own lips.

She doesn't respond verbally, only with a hitch in her breathing. You move closer, until you're only a few feet away. She responds by pulling herself into a smaller ball, muttering something too quietly for you to understand.

“Amanda, it's me,” you begin, your voice low and quiet, “We won. It's safe. You're safe.”

An icy tendril of worry begins to squirm in your gut as she still refuses to respond with anything other than breaths that you're starting to think may be poorly suppressed sobs.

You take a moment to sit back and examine her, wondering if she's taken on a status condition somehow. In moments, her character sheet is opening up before you.

You lean forward once more and reach out inch by inch with a forelimb until you make gentle contact with Amanda's arm. She flinches, but doesn't pull away. You shuffle forward once more and push her arm to the side. As it goes, her face comes up to meet your own. Her face is a mask of confused misery.

“I'm going to light the torch, is that alright Amanda?”

After receiving a hesitant nod you lean away from her and shoot a thin stream of flame at the torch bracket until it catches. As soft light begins to fill the room once more you turn back to the redhead and have to suppress a double take.

Where once her skin was pale, now it's almost white, translucent, like an albino. Her hair, while still red at first glance, is showing a shocking white at the roots. And her eyes... Once green, her eyes too seem to have been struck with albinism – turning a shocking ice blue flecked with grey.

“R-Red?”

Those eyes have turned to yours. She seems unsure of something as she searches your face. Whatever she is looking for, she doesn't seem to find it in you as her attention wanders around the room.

“Where...” But then she cuts herself off with a shake of her head. “What happened?”

You frown. “What do you remember?”

She touches her fingertips to her own lips for a moment, and then looks around the room again. “There was... an attack?” She pauses again and then continues. “It's like trying to grasp at fog.” She frowns at the middle-distance and then sighs. “Something... big?”

Your own mind turns back to waking up after the update. At how slow, strange and foreign your own mind had seemed.

“That's good,” you try for a reassuring smile but you're not sure how well you pull it off. “Anything is good. Yes, there was an attack. They were strong, but we fought them off. Not without losses.”

You pause to collect yourself and wonder how to broach the obvious, but Amanda leans forward, twisting, one of her hands drifting over a spot on her back.

“I died.”

There was no emotion in the statement.

“You did. But you saved one of the others. You picked up something one of the adventurers dropped.”

Amanda's eyes snap to yours and for the first time since you started talking she speaks with some urgency in her almost dreamy voice.

“Red. What am I?”

“You picked up a Necrotic Skull, a necromancer's class item. Congratulations, you have a class.”

But Amanda shakes her head. “No, that's not what...” Her voice gathers strength as she speaks. “Why am I a monster? How can I be a human and a monster?”

She fixes you again with those piercing eyes. “What am I?”

Your mouth sits open and silent. You have no idea to even begin to answer that question.

“You Amanda.”

Which is why you're so incredibly relieved when the door opens once more, admitting Feathers and Mercy.

“Nothing else matter. You Amanda. You one of us.”

Amanda's eyes flick across the goblin and the half succubus in what looks to be shock. Or fear. Recognition flares on her face after a moment that makes your stomach twist in fear.

“Feathers? And... Mercy?” She turns to look at you. “And there's... another?”

You nod at her with a smile. “Sapphire. She'll be along soon enough I expect. You're well liked here.”

Then you turn to the others. “It looks like there's some memory loss after her... well, but it's coming back to her. She might need space or she might need to walk around.” You turn back to the no-longer-quite-a-redhead. “I'll leave that up to you, OK? Whatever you feel you need.”

After getting a nod, you turn back to the others to see Mercy looking at you. She clears her throat before speaking.

“Speaking of death, I need a word with you.”

You nod in return, and the two of you step out of the cell as Amanda and Feathers begin to talk, halting and awkward.

“What's up?”

Mercy shifts on the spot before answering. “I think you should name everyone.”

“No.” you turn to leave, but Mercy steps in front of you in two quick strides.

“Seriously, Red, listen to me.”

You stop, but more out of lack of places to go than a desire to hear her out. You do not want to be responsible for the permanent death of anyone, thank you very much. Learning that you have the power to latch other being's essence to your own had been quite the unpleasant shock.

“Thank you. Look, you lost four people yesterday. Out of fifteen. That's not sustainable and -”

You bite back your anger as you cut her off. “Thank you for that masterful insight. Yes, I'll just go and cement the permanent death of the rest in order to minimise temporary annoyance. That's the right thing to do here.”

You don't look at her as you take a long breath. Mercy sighs above you.

“You know I don't mean it like that. And I know this is the last thing you want to hear, so please, give me a chance to explain everything before you decide, alright?”

You jerk out a nod, still not looking at her. After a few seconds, you see her shift in your peripheral vision. She starts to ascend the stairs and, after a moment, you follow.

“Like I said Red, you can't take losses like this. And you can't expect adventurers to give you time to recover in between attacks. In fact, I can only wager that they'll get more and more common as word spreads – word you need to spread in order to grow. It's a vicious cycle and one that's been weighed against you from the start. Safety for monsters was not the god's intentions with this update. They just want new places for adventurers to explore, to test themselves in.”

She pauses for breath at the top of stairs, and you both take a moment to look around the blood spattered pool room. The smoke is thicker here, although a slow breeze is beginning to clear the air. Your mind casts back what seems like so far, to your last round of upgrades – specifically Draconic Liegelord.

Mercy's mind is apparently running along the same tracks. “I know you have ways to attract more people to your side Red. And I'm not saying that you should name everyone you see. But... Have you ever asked a minion type monster what death is like?”

You shrug, bobbing your head. “A little. A long time ago. Who they are stays the same, at the core. But then things are added while who they were is taken away in order to match the ethos of the group they end up in. Most of their memories are suppressed, although they can come back with time.”

Mercy nods and leads you towards the arena.

“Pretty much, yeah. Do you know what they call it?”

You look up at her in confusion, an eye-ridge cocked. “I didn't know there was some special name for death.”

“That's because there isn't. Death.”

She gestures out over the pit and you take a minute to look, to try and understand what Mercy is trying to show you. But all you see are the mourning goblins and the morose kobolds.

She speaks up again. “Death. The fact that those they love will be reborn in some far away place, to find new friends and new love... that may be a comforting thought for monks on far off mountaintops, but most of us are rather too selfish. And if given the choice...” She trails off for a long moment. “If given the choice, most would choose to respawn, not be reborn.”

You look once more at the goblins, a lump forming in your throat.

“But I'd be taking away their immortality. How could anyone ever make that choice?”

“Nothing lasts forever Red. Not even the world. Eventually all will cease.” Mercy pauses; a long, terrible moment of silence, as if she is contemplating secrets not meant to be known. Then it passes, and she lets out a sigh.

“Even the gods are mortal in their own way. And with their passing, or soon after, the world will break. Wiped clean.” Her voice goes very soft, as if she is talking to herself. “If we're very lucky, a fragment of us will be reborn somewhere else, but I doubt it. And it still wouldn't be us.”

Another beat, and she collects herself. She turns to you. “Nothing lasts forever Red. And by making the choice for them you are showing them the greatest disrespect.”

“But-” your voice breaks. “But what about Amanda? She's so clearly come back different... hurt.”

“She was always going to. She's an NPC now. She's lost her Hero tag. That's a change on a fundamental level, a change to her soul. And one made by...” she trails off, looking thoughtful, before speaking again. “Well, this isn't anything more than an educated guess, but it's a change based on what people thought of her. Heroes, I mean. And they like a clear disconnect between the Hero she once was and the necromantic assistant to a monster she has become.”

“What does that actually mean?” You ask, somewhat interested despite yourself. The death and rebirth cycle was a little different for you – you're a unique, after all. Not one that was particularly interesting before this update, but still.

Mercy just shrugs. “I've thought for a while that there must be an intelligence behind the whole process. It always struck me as a little odd that there is no god of death. I'm growing toward the idea that there is, he or she or they just aren't very public. After all, never, not once, have I come across a story of someone being reborn into the same tribe. If it was just random, it would have happened at least once; so there is definitely some sort of guidance there.”

She turns back to you. “I'm getting away from myself. Look, I know you hate the idea of others being bound to you. But the fact is we already are. This place, what you've already done, is nothing short of amazing. People might be drawn here because of your Fame, or your Liegelord trait, but they stay because this place is better than the place they left behind. In case you hadn't noticed, you tend to attract the misfits.”

“Hey!” you feel the need to defend those who live in your halls.

“Just saying it like I see it. Sapphire is a runt who alternated between being hated by day and selling herself at night for a place to sleep. Feathers' lot was the last remnants of a broken tribe. The kobolds and goblins are the outcasts of their own tribes. No matter what you think, most tribes out there do fine with giving everyone a spear and a shield and going at it. We got the ones who don't have the knack for that. Hell, one of the kobolds is a compulsive thief. Yet, within half an hour of seeing them fight you had them organised in a team.”

She lets the silence linger for a moment.

“A team that just lost a member.”

You growl. “Low blow.”

She shrugs, unconcerned. “Maybe. Doesn't change that it's true.”

You let out an explosive sigh as your eyes are dragged once more towards those still grieving in the pit.

“Alright. Alright. I'll give them the choice.”

This chapter was meant to have a fair bit more happening in it – but as always when Mercy gets Red alone, they don't half like to talk.

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