[Ding! Quest Complete!]
[Quest: Mystery of the Broken City
Goal: Find clues as to where you are, what happened here, and why!
Quest Conditions: Discover 3 significant clues and form a logical hypothesis as to what happened in this city
Reward: 100 XP, 2 Chaos Energy]
[Level Up!]
"No," Alesha whispered, her gut wrenching. No! Why did it have to make so much sense, why couldn't it be easily refuted?! Iritia couldn't have- no!
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!" She screamed at the night sky. Oblivious to the lingering remnants of her meal, she ran her fingers through her hair and gripped tightly.
[... But it is,] the System said, a smirk in its tones.
"No! It's not! Stop it!!"
Thoughts raced through Alesha's head at lightspeed. As she wished she could stop thinking, cursing her innate curiosity, she made a few terrible connections. First, Korak was created from the pure essence of Chaos, with entirely unpredictable effects and an unknown limit to its powers. Second, she had already witnessed a fire that could mutate/transmute anything in entirely random ways; so why couldn't Korak itself do the same, and in a contagious form? Especially since they likely originated from the same power source: Chaos Energy. Third, the chaos zombie outbreak (as Alesha decided to call it) had originated from "Lightscale Apartments," where she lived… and most importantly, where Marshall -- to whom she had fed Korak -- lived as well.
She tightened her grip on her hair and brought her knees to her chest, hiding her head between them. At this point, she was already crying. Though her explanation didn't fit entirely (at face value, it couldn't explain why everything else alive in the city had disappeared), it fit too well to ignore.
[You've always been smart!] Rogork praised.
Instead, Alesha felt like she was being mocked.
Alesha yelled in frustration at the ground. Still in her upright fetal position, her grip on her hair so tight it hurt, she continued to release her pent-up emotions.
[Aww poor baby, she's feeling guilty she destroyed her family's home? I wonder how many people she killed indirectly with this?! It's gotta be somewhere in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands or more!!] Rogork cackled gleefully.
Its targeted words dug into Alesha's most sensitive areas, prompting louder cries of distress.
For her part, Beebee cocked her head, confused. What did any of this disaster have to do with Alesha, aside from being a victim of the weird mutation? Why would any of this be her fault? And what about all of this was causing her to feel so much despair? Given no context for the unfamiliar woman's distress, all the pinkish rodent could do was cuddle up to Alesha's tail and gently stroke her scales. That choice of action, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with how gorgeously shiny they were and the way they reflected the night sky. Nope, nothing whatsoever.
Alesha continued to cry. She had been through so much lately, and having the guilt of an entire city's destruction dumped on her shoulders was just too much for this barely 22-year-old "normal" girl to bear.
In fact, all of that which had happened to her over the last few months had been far beyond her capacity to handle! It had been an endless procession of one thing after another, with barely any rest in between. The attack on Faxton, waking up with the vexing "Seed of Chaos System," being forcefully assigned quests with terrible penalties one after another, subsequently failing a few important ones, then having to choose to leave being "human" behind to survive the Chaos Moon? It had all been so hard to deal with! Of course, it hadn't even stopped there! After that, she'd been randomly summoned to another world as a demon, discovered unwelcome intel about how some Goddess of Chaos was targeting her world, somehow accidentally killed a professor and been forced to evolve for a second time, barely survived an encounter with a Banshee Queen and been violated by someone she trusted.
If you excluded the 2 months she'd spent in a coma prior to waking, all of that had occurred within the past 11 days or so.
"11 freaking days," Alesha sobbed.
Beebee's ears twitched. "11 days?" She muttered quietly, confused. "But everything started a week ago?"
It was quite some time before Alesha calmed down enough to think rationally again.
By the time she did, she was so wiped out that she ended up falling asleep on the spot, leaving Beebee without a conversation partner.
----
In an imperceptible, familiar black space, she found she had no physical form. Was she dreaming again? What was the meaning of these dreams? Was there any meaning to them to begin with?
Her contemplations were interrupted by the boisterous laughter of an incredibly rich, deep voice. Didn't this voice belong to an individual who the woman referred to as her… was it her General? It had been a while since the last of these dreams. Whoever this booming voice belonged to, even without a physical form, somehow she could tell that it reverberated through her.
"Mistress, what a wonderful sight! Isn't this a wondrous development? Your wisdom in preserving the Seed astonishes me, I cannot believe it has already borne fruit!" He continued to laugh, his various kinds of laughter reminding her of hooting, howling and barking. Was the bearer of the voice inhuman?
"Hmmmm~" the woman's sultry voice hummed. "I am very pleased indeed. Little Sprout, you are doing very well! Very well indeed~"
She had thought herself without a physical form, but when the woman tugged on one of her leaves, she felt pain. What did this woman want? Did she want her to grow, or did she want to hurt her? The aura of sheer power coming from her hand was overwhelming, now that it had manifested. She felt herself shivering violently.
Was this how the little rodent had felt earlier? A wave of compassion for the creature hit her suddenly. Perhaps she should have been more careful towards it.
"Lost in thought today, are we?" The woman asked, sounding saddened. "Well, I suppose my little Sprout does need to spread its wings. Take this~ it will help you fly!" She cooed in a sing-song voice.
A different kind of shiver arced through her Sprout body. It felt… nice…