cancry | Gula Underside Log

Gula Underside Log

GULA DUNGEON LOG
As you make the now familiar descent, the screeches and chatterings of the Underside's inhabitants swim up to meet you alongside a suffocating wall of heat. The Gula Underside unfolds itself before you in jewel colours and sweltering heat. In stark contrast to the Rusted City stripped bare and the sterile Undercity, the Gluttony Underside is bursting with life - and danger. This densely packed rainforest spills out in all directions like a natural maze and you're going to have to pull out all the stops to find Gerda before something else does - or before it finds you.
THE UNDERSIDE
♪♫ Floating -Liquidly- – Sakuzyo The jungle is thickly clustered with huge palm trees rising to form an almost impassable canopy that only opens out occasionally when branches shift or when the wind blows, revealing the dim green light of the Underside's sickly looking sky. As you look up, you occasionally see the shadows of Revenants (or at least you HOPE they're Revenants) darting around high above your head. The ground is blanketed in luscious undergrowth that feels soft underfoot - loamy moss, tangled patches of grass, leaves. Occasionally, the uneven ground gives way to puddles of water or patches of loose, sloppy mud that you're forced to wade your way through if you want to proceed. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the jungle is so dense that you're never not within reaching distance of a sturdy tree or rock you can use to steady yourself. Somewhere in this place is Gerda and your way further down into Purgatory. Let's hope you can make your way through unscathed. AREAS OF INTEREST Due to the sheer scale of this Underside, explorations will proceed slightly differently. The Executors will be split into three teams – two to explore the Underside itself and the third being the team assigned to this layer's Boss Combat. Please see below for your role assignments. ⚝ NORTHBOUND: The Executors exploring the north are Medic, Etoile, Lion, Chiron and Veil. ⚝ SOUTHBOUND: The Executors exploring the south are Rei, Genius, Mona, Achilles, Ariel and Phoenix. ⚝ THE WATERING HOLE: Boss Combat volunteers, report! HAZARDS ⚝ Dense Wood: The overgrowth of the jungle and the tightly packed trees mean there are very few wide open spaces as you make your way through. For those of you who rely on your eyeballs, this means visibility is hampered - and that Revenants could ambush you if you're not on high alert! Uneven Footing: Given how wild the terrain here is, you might find that it's a bit hard to get stable footing when you're running to and fro here. Some of this is varied elevation but a lot of it is varied textures too. Stumble too close to anywhere with running water and you'll be slipping and sliding all up and down the Underside! ⚝ Revenant Types Present: Charles, Minturno

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[He does a slow turn, eyeing the mist, looking at shadows between the trees.]

Not by choice.

[He'll not lie. It's pretty fucking clear he's alone.] We've come to continue our journey against your judgement. And I've recovered from your brand of kindness. A temporary bout of amnesia; I'm growing accustomed to the feeling, I'm afraid.

[ It's hard to spot anything in this mist – whether it's a natural quality of the layer or something conjured to mask her movements is impossible to tell. Given the quiet sounds of shifting leaves and branches and the change in the direction of her voice, it seems she's flitting around the trees as she speaks.

Little bird indeed. ]

It would've been much easier for you if you'd forgotten all of it. It's a cruel fate – to be aware of every moment that passes and takes you that bit closer to becoming a monster, just like the rest of them.

[ She hums in thought. The noise is soft, a little musical. ]

The offer still stands – to send you back to sleep, if you wish it. I don't mean you any unkindness or cruelty. I just want you – I want all of us to be at peace.

...I've come to know something of what you speak, since we last met. Time stretching out into infinitely long moments, each one lost with no rhyme or reason or meaning. I'm afraid... [And it's so tiring. Exhausting. The fear and panic and loneliness and boredom and anger and sadness and madness scrabbling back up his throat that it might spill from his tainted tongue. That he swallows it back, every time, lest he lose himself to something he can barely name.] I'm afraid in my life I already became a terrible monster. The worst kind: one with rational mind still intact.

[Perhaps it's not wise to admit these things to someone who ran him straight through with her fuckblade last time, but it seems pertinent. She said many things that gave him pause before.]

I would ask that we might speak first? Before we dive into the whole battle nonsense. You seem to care, that we've stumbled into something bigger than ourselves. That we be put to rest. And you are so disparaging of Rei, as though she is some schemer mastermind, puppeting us to some kind of doom.

And you...you are something between, aren't you?

[ There's a soft noise, a hum of consideration and a quiet pause before she responds. A cool wind rushes through the trees, masking the sounds of her movement but when she speaks up again, it sounds like she's in the trees just behind him. ]

Something along those lines. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say I became this, eventually. Not quite a Revenant or an Aberrant, but no longer... what I was before.

[ She seems to have settled – she still has the advantage, should this turn into a fight. But for now, she seems willing to just... speak. ]

Does it frighten you? The thought that you might become some sort of beast once again.

[He settles, too. If she prefers to move about, let her, but he faces the direction she seems to be now and settles himself back on some mossy rock. Pulls out his phone to check to see if there are any messages from the other, shoots out: Still intact for the moment. He can't exactly give out a location when a lot of this place is forest already. Sets it down that he might see any notifications, popping on some recording device in case all of this becomes relevant later.

And dumps gross muckwater out of his shoes gross gross gross.]

I would prefer not to be what I was if I can help it. I've been told so many times now that what I remember being does not, should not define who I am now. I don't know how true that is. I don't know if it can be helped or even stopped.

Do you remember? From your living life?

[ There's another of those soft, surprised intakes of breath. But then barely a moment later, she begins to laugh.

Irritatingly, she has a very pleasant one.

She laughs, as if Chiron's made a particularly good joke and then trails back into that troubling quiet. ]

Oh, I remember a great many things. Most of which I would prefer not to. But... no memory of a life beyond Purgatory.

[ She seems to click her tongue in consideration, before continuing to speak. ]

I was never alive, after all.

...Forgive my ignorance, but that does imply you're a...native to this plane of existence. Have I got that right? You simply exist here as not quite any one thing.

Correct. [ Still in that amused tone of voice. ] I suppose in terms of a human soul, I was "born" from this place. But I remain here, and the souls of the living come and go.

Or they once did, at least.

Why do you even exist? Are you, hm...some personification of Purgatory? Stranger things have theoretically happened, but that one would be rather up there.

[ There's a long, thoughtful pause. You'll get the impression, as the conversation goes by, that this is probably the first time in a long while – perhaps ever – that she's spoken to anybody, let alone anyone with questions like this. ]

The word you would use is "Authority", I think. From Limbo to the Cogs of Renewal, all of Purgatory is my domain. But as to why...

[ A soft laugh. ]

I don't know. Perhaps I'm here to guide the souls of the living to their next lives. Or I suppose I could be nothing more than the detritus left behind by all those human souls, and I simply began dreaming of being one myself, one day.

[Ohhhhhhh. Shit. He pauses in wringing out his cloak. (Could he disappear them and reappear them just fine? Yes. Shh.)]

Authorities on each level seem to want to stop us, to keep us from getting to the Cogs. Versions of themselves corrupted by the theme, the 'sin' as it were, for being exemplary models and for being stuck without moving onward.

But why would you hamper our progress? Is it because...even you would inevitably be broken down? You did say, even a god can't stand up against that force. What even would wait for you on the other side, I wonder... But--you also said that the Cogs won't turn so long as Executors exist. Who, then, would fix the Cogs if not Executors?

No, no. Whatever waited for me on the other side, if the Cogs should turn then I would be the first to pass through them. I have been here... far too long. If the Cogs ground me down to nothing... then so be it.

But... [ A soft, rhythmic tapping noise, like someone lightly drumming their fingers. ] Should you reach the bottom and find no way to repair the Cogs, what will you do? If you claw and fight your way down as deep as you can go and find you can go no further... would it not be kinder for you to sleep? To return to a beautiful dream, for the rest of time?

[ Tap, tap, tap. ]

The Cogs will not turn. Not so long as that girl holds you in her heart.

Mm. [A thoughtful hum, like considering it.] That's a conversation for if we get down there and can't fix it, I suppose. We've simply come too far to give up now. We'll make it, or some of us will, and then whatever happens from there happens.

[A beautiful dream would be a kindness, yes. Is it one he deserves? A question for another time.]

That girl. You don't like her very much. [Delicately stated.] You have a history with her. What we know--what we think we know--is that she is an Executor but without any of her memories. [He won't mention the butterflies, the revelation that while they had assumed they were Rei's memories, she hasn't personally regained a single one.] With the singular power to make more of us.

But you know better, don't you? What is she?

[ That terrible cold once again fills the space where words should be. It's only the steady tap, tap, tap that makes it clear she's still there at all. It should be a simple answer, but given where she begins when she does finally speak up, maybe there's nothing simple about this place. ]

Back when I and Purgatory were still young, I did my duties... carelessly, I suppose. Not imprecisely, but without care or warmth. I was not human. Nothing stirred in my chest as I guided each soul down to their next lives. I did not have a heart.

But... as time passed, one began to form. Like a curse. Or a tumour. It... changed me. Made me like the humans I carried to the Cogs, even though this was a duty no human could ever bear by themselves. This would be a terrible place to be alone for all eternity, would it not?

It troubled me, this heart so like a human's.

[ Tap. Tap. Tap. ]

So I thought it would be better... for all of us... if I were to cut it out.

[ Tap. ]

That is what she is.

[The revelation begs so many more questions. But he pulls his legs up, arms wrapped loosely around, and just breathes through it. The memories then aren't Rei's, but perhaps they belong to this girl? Hm, no, but who were these people that taught her how to be, how to exist?

Cut out the heart...yes, that sounds perfectly pragmatic for a being forced to exist in this place with no one sticking around too long. She seems so indifferent to her own fate should they fix the Cogs, but at least like this, there are those who stay.

Perhaps that wouldn't matter to Birdie.]

She's been nothing but incredibly kind to us. In her own way. A dear and human-like girl. I assume you don't want her back, and I can hardly blame you.

What does her existence and her heart have to do with the Cogs?

[ Again, that infuriatingly pretty laugh rings out. ]

It's just as I said. Purgatory is a terrible place to spend all of eternity alone. Should you reach the bottom and should the Cogs turn then all of you will walk away to your new lives and leave her here. Alone again and lonelier still for knowing what it feels like to have loved you all and been left behind.

So why would she ever allow the Cogs to turn?

[That's pretty much what he was afraid of, but then:] She can go through, too. Then she wouldn't have to stay here, same as you. Her whole mission, as she sees it, is to get the Cogs to turn again. Does she truly not remember and wants to try and fix something that feels wrong, or is she just...gathering friends to join her? Convince people to pal around with her until they all fall or...reach the end and then...

[Oh. Oh he does not like where some of these thoughts lead. Could Rei truly be capable of lying to them like that? That nervous wreck of a socially anxious child?]

We aren't the first, are we? That's why you, the Authorities, know what Executors even are.

No, you aren't.

[ Whether she means to make that sound as damning as it comes out is unclear. ]

There was one before you. A girl. But it was so long ago now that I...

[ For once her voice wavers and threatens to break. She stops herself there, composes herself and continues with something that seems... safer. ]

I don't... know what her intentions are. Maybe her heart is as hopelessly pure as you say and she remembers nothing. Or perhaps she's leading you all to your doom for her own satisfaction. I don't know. And I don't care to speak to her for myself to find out.

Why not?

[It's an earnest question.] You aren't going to want her back, even if you could take her in. I don't know how she'll react to you, but... What's the worst that could happen from having a conversation with yourself?

Don't.

[ For the first time, her voice sharpens. ]

It's bad enough that she still exists. Why would you have me come face to face with that awful reminder of what I used to be?

And what would you have done with her instead? Just let her be? Slay her? Let her suffer the same pointless existence as you? Fabulous, now there are two of you.

Why do you care so much what I do?

[ There's still a touch of that sharpness to her tone, but otherwise she just sounds a little... sullen? It's sort of hilarious to imagine her sulking up there in the tree... ]

[Somehow, that's easier. To imagine a broody teenager, even if perhaps she's existed since the dawn of time. Chiron stretches out his legs and tilts his head in that direction.]

Is it so strange to imagine that I might like to know what you would do and why you do it? You, who has such a vested interest in what we do? You've been a shadow of a presence in our afterlives nearly since we came into awakening. You made a very fine attempt at setting me to rest with a blade through me. I care very much about someone like that.

[It need not be a positive emotion for it to be care. She's a concern, certainly.]

I suppose.

[ Still in that sullen tone. It seems for a moment like she's going to leave it there, but when she speaks up again her voice is a little gentler. ]

... I still remember. All of it, for as long as I've ever been here. I remember what it felt like for my mind to fracture apart under the weight of the years and to know that even if I gave in to my despair and even if I sought to make it all stop... nothing would make it stop. I could only hope that I could somehow slip back into a peaceful sleep and let it pass me by, unawares.

No one could give me that dream. But... this is not a fate anyone should endure. I could, at least, do it for the rest of you.

[If she wasn't watching him like a hawk, she'd be forgiven for thinking that perhaps he'd fucked off after that. As it is, he takes it in, considers the situation. He's not sure what it means for Rei. If she truly has forgotten, or if perhaps the same sort of fracturing weight has driven her to a form of madness they haven't even begun to glimpse. His hand slides over to his phone and stops the recording, and he hangs there in a prolonged moment that feels like eternity. That feels like two thousand years.

With time, such as it is here, he can at least glance at it briefly without going utterly mad. But he does remember. He can delve into it, the years of nothing. In some ways, at least she had something--a job, people if fleetingly. He had the darkness, the eternal pain, his own mind and the hallucinated thoughts. Aera's disdain and Somnus' contempt. The sound of his own breathing, and then the sound of silence when he occasionally stopped doing so. The sound of his heartbeat. The sound of every creak and shift in the massive chains holding him in place. Distantly--so distantly--the sound of the ocean when the storms became furious, and thunder when the Fulgarian showed his displeasure.

And himself. And himself. And himself. Seconds and days were the same, and weeks and years as well. Every moment of time moving forward that felt infinitesimally small and so so wide with no ability to tell and no ability to care.

When he came out the other side, he was understandably a wreck. Some wretched gremlin of a man who thought him a prized experiment who wanted to goad him into joining a war with people he was so far removed from that--none of it mattered. He didn't care. He still said his prayers for food but barely ate. Drank quite a bit. Read what he could, trying to play catch up with the history and technology, but more or less floated through his time like a ghost.

It feels too big and too vast for his skull to contain, darkness bursting at the seams. He holds his head in his hands, heavy breathing transforming into laughter, a noise clearly unhinged from reality. Scourge drips from his blackened eyes, dribbles from his mouth. It evaporates the same as pneuma.

It beats screaming, he supposes.

When he finally regains control of himself, the memories settling back into locked boxes, he lies back on the rock, arms spread, chest heaving.]

You realize this means you should help us, I hope. [Such a rational, calm thing to say with only breathlessness to give it away after that fit.] Fix the Cogs. You can be the first one through to go to whatever lies beyond and leave this old self behind. I'll be right behind you. I know not what killed the unkillable, but continued existence is...[he flits a hand through the air, twisting his wrist that he might pluck the right word from the foggy branches above his head] burdensome.

Or you could let us strike as many blows to you as are needed to send you to sleep. You needn't fight anymore.

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cw: suicidal ideation if you squint

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cw: self harm imagery

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cw: suicidal ideation

cw: suicidal ideation