Famine 147: True Form

The first blood person began to vomit.

Then came the second, the third… The blood people collapsed to their knees, eyes vacant, sprawled in disarray across the ground as if enduring some unspeakable agony, vomiting uncontrollably. From their mouths and noses, from every orifice, more and more tendrils extended outward, writhing against each other.

The blood person collapsed before them opened his mouth wide, jaw unhinged, and from the gaping maw a shadow slowly emerged, pushing its head out.

Nidhoog spread his dragon wings in a flash, pulling Shi He behind him protectively, and let out a cold, mocking laugh: “Well now, isn’t this our old friend?”

It was [Friend].
The [Friends] crawled out from the bodies of the blood people.

On the farm’s Lava Land, a single hamster twitched its tiny nose and rose up on its hind legs. Several others followed in its footsteps, slowly gathering together.
The hamsters all gazed in the same direction, their mouths moving silently.

“…So it’s you. Old friends.”

Inside the hostel, one shadow after another, each creeping out piece by piece—short, stubby limbs, impossibly bent joints, grotesquely elongated faces with all features melting together…

The [Friends] gathered in the square, their pitch-black skulls shifting and rustling, throats wheezing, emitting a dense chorus of sounds.

[Gu…]

[Hurururu…]

[…………Woof!]

The first crisp bark pierced the stillness of the Abyss.

[Woof!… Awwoof! Woof woof!]
[Wururu… Woof!]

Beneath the hostel’s bright lights, the shadows surged, calling out in a wave of soft barks—some puzzled, some exuberant—gathering together into groups.

High above, Si Zhiyan let out a slow breath.

Pop.

The air rang with faint, popping sounds.
At some point, hamsters had appeared all around Si Zhiyan.

The [Friends] made no sound, simply gazing silently down at the grassland below.

And at Si Zhiyan’s ear, suddenly, a familiar work song began to play—

Heave ho! Heave ho! Strike the bones of the mountain,
Sweat soaking into skin forged from lava!
Heave ho! Heave ho! Look beneath the master’s feet,
Even the short legs of minehounds can kick the stars asunder!
……

Clang! Clang! Picks rang against the rock walls, Lava Landers bare-chested, swinging their tools in song. And at their feet, little minehounds, tongues lolling, hauled carts, kicked their stubby legs high, and dashed cheerfully through the mines.

—Lava Landers have a tradition of raising minehounds.

Minehounds sniff out ore, help move cargo through the narrow tunnels.
To run through mines, the [Friends] had squat, powerful, furry legs.

[Friend] walked on all fours, with limbs strikingly short and faces unnaturally drawn out… at their necks, a glittering flash occasionally flared.

To humans, their appearance was deeply unnerving—because the [Friends] were never originally human.

The first time Nidhoog encountered the minehounds, a low-grade fire crystal dropped from a [Friend]’s neck—a crystal that increased its wearer’s strength by three percent, functional but only crudely cut and forged.

It was a fragment left on the [Friend]s’ collars by the Lava Landers, making it easier for their companions to pull carts.

The [Nest] was a great wooden platform, and upon it stood rows of sloped-roof wooden huts. Each hut was only half human height, a single, squat, sturdy room with no door, only an open doorway…

It was the classic structure of a doghouse.

Anything shrouded by the cult leader’s [The Lamp of Lameness] could not be consciously noticed by any human. This was a curse object of cognitive interference, which worked irrespective of life or death—not even the [Friends]’ description could be perceived.

Yet the [Friends] could help Si Zhiyan find where the cult leader was hiding.
More precisely, they helped Havana and HACK… All this time, the lingering senses of the [Friends] could only be triggered by Havana and HACK.

The blood people assimilated by the [Friends] gradually hunched over, moving on all fours, their faces elongated, joints bending backwards, chest cavities swelling, waists narrowing…

…Because they were, bit by bit, becoming more like dogs.

…

In the forest of the farm, amid the hanging array of red string formations, He An seemed to sense something, gently raising her hand.

The panorama of the Abyss unfurled before her eyes.

“…Ever since merging with the Heavenly Pulse, my perception of the Abyss has grown so much keener…”

He An lightly clenched her hand, murmuring to herself,

“Ah… Ai An, do you see? Sooner or later, I too will have mastery of the Abyss, just like you…”

…

—The Abyss beside the [Jewel Domain] was a sacred place for storing sacrificial corpses.

Just as the hot springs on the tundra and in the forest served as final resting places, so too did the Lava Landers have their own rituals for the end.

Ever since the order for sacrifice was given by the Heavenly Pulse Maiden, countless Lava Landers, bathed in the glow of the sacrificial array, leaped into the Abyss to perish in endless falling.

As if in a fading dream, countless blood people,

On that day, the Lava Landers resolved to follow the Heavenly Pulse Maiden and become her power.

…Yet they did not wish their dogs to perish with them, so they unfastened the ropes and set their minehounds free.

The small minehounds bit their masters’ pant legs, struggling desperately, trying with all their might to drag them away. The people yelled and struck them, but the dogs wouldn’t let go.

Of course, it was all fruitless. A dog could lunge at any enemy, except it could not sway the hearts of its people. They were powerless to do anything but watch as one after another of their family, regardless of age or gender, recited the Heavenly Pulse Maiden’s name and leapt into the depths.

At the rim of the Abyss rose cries of confusion and grief.

How did the minehounds fall into the Abyss? Si Zhiyan could not say.

Many minehounds were beaten bloody, thrown away, only to run back again. After losing their masters, they could not survive in the apocalypse, lost and lonely, wandering and grieving for a long time before at last…

No one truly knew what the [Friends] encountered in the Abyss. All that was known: when they reappeared, the minehounds had become something monstrous and symbiotic with tendrils.

Driven by the trauma of their cursed existence, the [Friends] loathed the sacrificial fires of the Abyss, preferring blackness without a single flame.
They prowled the darkness, snuffing out lasting lights, becoming monsters wreathed in dark.

Only the light from their homeland Lava Land brought them peace.

The monstrous instinct drove the [Friends] to kill and to parasitize; the fragments of canine intelligence made them strive to save, to love. Like all monsters, they struggled eternally in the space between life and death, bound by obsession, never to find release in millennia.

Originally there were no humans in the Abyss; the [Friends] were no different from every other monster, lost in chaos and contradiction, frenziedly tearing at each other, devouring and fighting.

Until the [Players] arrived in the Abyss.

This group, who so perfectly resembled their own lost families— the coming of human friends awakened the [Friends].

To save others, the minehounds burrowed into the bodies of players in the darkness, helping them to soar through the Abyss.

Minehounds had been trained to rescue in mine disasters; those that lost their reason would try to drag the people they found in the dark away from danger. Yet, in the Abyss, there was nowhere blessed by lava’s light, nowhere to drag a player to safety, yet they struggled on, always dragging, always fighting… As a result, the hapless players were ripped apart.

Thus, those lost in darkness would die.

Those clung to by minehounds would dream of the person they loved most.
In truth, the minehound was trying to kindle their will to survive by living in their mind.

For a dog, family was always dearest, never to be abandoned.

The dogs did not realize that this would ensnare humans in dreams, leading to their deaths.

Only when someone stayed forever in the dream, sleeping away their life, did the minehounds recapture a flicker of clarity.
Ever since, when darkness was about to fall, the loved ones shaped by the minehounds would try with all their might to wake the dreamers.

…

Si Zhiyan alighted on the lawn, gazing at the bustling pack of minehounds before him, crouching down, extending a hand. The shadowy, tendril-bodied minehounds swarmed up, tails wagging, licking at his palm with feverish devotion.

“How ironic…”

Si Zhiyan patted a canine head, the curve of his lips humorless.

“All this time, you’ve tried to find a safe place, to provide energy for humans, hoping everyone could find a way to survive in the Abyss… only then would you be able to leave them in peace.”

“And yet, in doing so, you inspired people to worship and revere you, crippling their hope and making them wish to become monsters like you.”

“But they never knew what you really were.”

Si Zhiyan sighed.

“…Enough. I’m just somewhat luckier, not qualified to judge anyone.”

“But is it really necessary…must everyone seek out a spiritual pillar just to find the strength to keep going?”

Be it the Lava Landers of old, or today’s blood people.

“And now, like this…what will you do?”

The lively life at the hostel had allowed the minehounds to emerge from the bodies of the blood people.

But what then?

Clearly, the [Friends] could not stay at the farm. These minehounds were true monsters—no telling when their fixations might drive them to a killing frenzy. Even Si Zhiyan himself had no confidence in keeping them all in check. They were simply too dangerous.

…Yet, the idea of sending them back to the endless cycle of the Abyss made Si Zhiyan feel… reluctant.

The minehounds, of course, understood nothing, wagging their small, grotesque bodies without a care, swarming around him with eager excitement. Si Zhiyan was only talking to himself. No one replied.

The blood people still had not regained their mobility. The staff from the farm, baffled by all this, kept their distance from the atrium; even Nidhoog guarded Shi He, holding no intention of approaching this den of monsters.

All around, there was nothing but empty silence, save for a dense thicket of canine shadows.

Just as Si Zhiyan had journeyed all this way.

Only a handful had followed behind him; a handful had lived or died because of him. He had changed the fates of many; people had always been saving themselves. He had never thought of himself as some lone hero.

But Si Zhiyan stood at a great height.

Just as he did now.

He had long pondered the nature of [Friend], always seeking and observing, deep in thought as he overlooked the Nest, his thoughts invisible to anyone else. When he gathered his sugar jars, when he stared into the sky’s eye, voicing reckless and impossible ideas, he was always alone. He An was an excellent ally—persistent, dependable, sparing with words, but most of her time was spent sequestered in the forests, and she showed little interest in affairs unrelated to the Main God.

Years of contemplating great matters—where every move might decide the fate of hundreds of thousands—had made those trivial worries of “what to eat tonight” and “am I really good enough?” drift ever distant from him.

Even hurdles like “afraid to speak with strangers” had faded, passed beyond without his noticing.

Still, every once in a while, such fleeting thoughts would emerge.

Si Zhiyan found no answer. He patted the minehound’s cold, black body, and smiled quietly to himself.

By tomorrow, he would have sorted out his feelings again. These melancholy fancies were nothing compared to the many lives symbiotic with his own.

Just then, the minehound under Si Zhiyan’s hand suddenly convulsed.

“!” Si Zhiyan swiftly drew back, and with a crash, a massive maw clamped down where his hand had just been.

[Wuu… wuururururu!!]

The vast sea of minehounds before him all glared with bloodthirst; countless eyes blazed with murderous intent, lighting up amid the shadows, staring him down.

An avalanche of tendrils erupted, wrapping their bodies, swelling larger and larger like balloons, rows of jagged teeth gleaming, strings of drool trailing down, as they advanced on Si Zhiyan, step by step.