When the monsters had learned that humans existed, that they were the cause and answer to the mana drain that plagued their realm, what were they to believe?
There were as many sects out there as there were beasts.
For this cult of Kaele, humans had found a way to escape the mana drain. A haven where monsters could join them and live there in bliss for eternity. Those who disturbed such a place were sworn enemies and doomed to fail for humans were invincible.
The price of entry to the humans' domain was, as with all things, a sacrifice, and so they captured other monsters for their ceremonies.
The legged rapt was pushed along a narrow tunnel along which small dens contained dozens of such live offerings. Beasts of all kind, wounded and weak, tied or nailed while waiting for their hour. Their moans and cries of rage echoed in vain.
She herself bore silver chains, forced to follow two greyhounds who told her to enter one of those dens. For all her pretense, she was trembling.
Chained beasts had lost all fear; she was unaffected and thus very terrified; but once more the rocky lizards just shrugged it off, just as they ignored the glowing crystals at her passage.
She was pressed among the wounded beasts and told to stay there. They conceived of nailing her to the ground just to be safe but decided against it.
I watched them leave.
The insect on my back fretted. She didn't like this place one bit. Her heavy shell, for how steady she looked, was shaking too.
I approached the cute rapt, crouched and put my hand on her head. What monsters had the strength to care around us got startled when she disappeared from their sight.
"Good job, Caline. Nobody sees us right now."
"You are so mean!" She shouted with distress. "You get chained! I did nothing bad and they stole my ribbon and now everyone hates me! It's all your fault!"
Her tiny forelegs could not even reach my arm, but if they had, they would have pummeled the clay plates into a massage.
Still, she was right.
"Well, you are here now. What do you want to do, Caline?"
Her demeanor changed almost immediately and she yelled, full of hope:
"We are going to save the realm!"
"That, what, how does it, it's... Go on."
She nearly broke the chains by getting up.
"We need to free everyone here! And heal them!"
"Why?"
To her it was obvious. They were suffering, so she wanted to help. That was just her rapt nature talking, the strategy they had chosen to survive: help others so they would shield them in turn.
But what would happen if the sect suddenly lost their sacrifices?
They would vanish and try again later.
And since that didn't convince her, I pointed out the killer. A temple had been attacked, a feral beast was running free and if she wanted to find the culprit, the best place for that was a ceremony.
She calmed down, but only after I promised we would save everyone in the end.
"Okay..." She carefully agreed.
I watched her lay down once more, pouting. The moans around here were getting to her.
"It will be a long wait." I pointed out. "Do you want me to bring you food?"
"Food!" The rapt rejoiced. "I like the fruits best! Oh, can you bring some for the others too?"
"As you wish. I will be back soon with a feast."
My foot traced a circle on the ground, just in front of her. It sank into the ground before she could read the runes on it. Not that the cute rapt understood much about magic anyway.
This would let me keep a better eye on her and bring a clone if anything was to happen.
Because I had mostly lied. The food was just an excuse for me to attend another business.
"Eh, Kaele?"
Her voice stopped me before my hand had left her head. She had become a bit shy.
"Are you okay? You twitch every time you move."
If my face wasn't masked and expressionless, I would have offered her a meek smile.
"I'm fine. Worry about the realm."
My hand left her. She played pretend again, amidst the beasts that once more got a bit surprised to find her back in the low darkness. But in their weakened state all felt like a fever dream anyway.
The rapt watched me walk back to the rocky wall and merge in it, vanishing through solid stone. Then she was alone and I felt bad for abandoning her.
Once far enough, with dozens of meters of rock to dampen the effect, I stopped.
The fluidity around me waned and my whole golem body got pressed by solid mass. Not the most comfortable position, yet as long as it did not damage my badger mask, it worked in my favor.
I focused on my chest.
This was utopia. Those caves at the humans' doorstep knew frequent tremors. They would feel a few more. The rock around me started to shake, drained of many to the breaking point.
"Calisle."
My voice cast past mana, into the domain of anti-magic. An invisible ocean of stillness and death, unresponsive but I knew of one beast that lurked there.
The skeletal wyvern was bound to be around.
"Monsters have grown restless." I went on as if he could hear me. "A legion of souls scrape on haven's door. Tell me, old friend, can you feel it?"
The last time we had talked, that wyvern, that ghost really, was on the verge of death.
He had the key to enter Earth, the humans' shelter, and had certainly tried, only to realize how hazardous that path was.
In theory, the humans' haven was a simple construct. Void, magic, void and that was it. In practice, with little time and too many things to adjust, the humans of old had piled up some two dozen layers to make it work.
And so the wyvern had paid the price. An anti-magic beast would die crossing that.
"Calisle. Monsters pray your name. I have seen your altars in Utopia. Will you not answer?"
"It has been too long, dear friend." The mocking voice flowed back, still wounded. "I see your folly is worse than mine. Have you come to dethrone the four-horned badger?" And he chuckled. "You wear a vain mask and a heavy heart."
"We truly think alike..."
In that we didn't think at all.
I was just a clay golem following instructions I did not understand and he, a ghost led by hate from beasts past. Two fools trapped in a duty we could not escape, no matter how puny and silly our efforts.
Even though his attempt to cross had been so long ago, the wyvern still had not recovered. I could now perceive his suffering in the anti-magic.
But of all the parts that had broken, the first he had restored was his only wing.
"Tremors shape and rhythm this lair of vermin." He continued. "They are the nature of Alunra, that much is true. They also announce the return of humans."
So they were getting stronger and more frequent.
I asked: "How fares the haven?"
"That legion of insects squirms for naught! Their only worth is to offer me warriors brave enough to cross."
It was only natural. Rather than just wait, that wyvern had invited other monsters to try. Beasts that shared his hate and thirst, willing to spill human blood. How many had agreed? Dozens, hundreds even would still not be enough.
Because the crossing was just too treacherous.
What few could even survive it would arrive on the other side either dead or so weakened as to be a husk; either way the stored mana they would have to pass would steal them their very essence.
There was no telling what little would be left of those making it through, if any even had.
Any that did would meet an even crueler fate.
But none of it mattered. The wyvern had to try and with each try he could drill a bit further, claw just a bit closer to his preys. He was slowly carving a safe passage. With months or years that harsh strategy would have worked.
"Monsters are making sacrifices." I explained. "I need to know where that magic goes."
"They only feed themselves with those delusions. A myriad could die and still the balance would remain. Why do you fret about their little games?"
"Have you forgot how frail the haven can be?"
Silence was my answer. And in that silence the wyvern had answered. He remembered. The mighty skeleton was catching up and probably scouring his domain to gauge the threat.
I had plenty of time. Chest notwithstanding, the best thing I could do was wait.
It took him a while, but his mocking voice came back, closer.
"Those fools! We should murder them to the last."
"I take it the haven is affected?"
"Indeed it is. Had you not been the one to warn me, I would have thought this was your doing. But ignorance trumps spite."
The humans' shelter was crafted in such a way that, technically, it spanned the entire realm. And that craft relied on a very tenuous balance without which, in a land so deprived of mana, it would turn into the most destructive spell ever devised.
It didn't help that the balance of mana, in the realm itself, had changed, causing the whole construct to become that much more unstable.
And of the seven chains that kept Earth still, three had fallen.
"Monsters are choosing their own fate." My voice had an amused tone. "Of all those racing for human demise, who will win I wonder? You should hurry."
"Are you not going to stop them?" The wyvern was genuinely surprised.
"Have you forgot? I lose no matter what. It is equal to me how all of this ends."
"And yet, you warned me."
Point taken. So do something already! Why should the human servant be the one to go against monsters to save monsters who would kill humans?!
Die! All of you!
Die to the last!
What kind of duty was that, to reward my masters' murderers?! They didn't know! They would regret it! It was for the best! Screw that, the humans would still die! They were meant to save the realm, but nobody would save them?!
Okay... okay. The pain was getting to me a bit.
"Very well." The wyvern talked for two. His mockery was gone. "You should rest, dear friend. I would prefer that you outlive me if even for a second."
Sure.
"Stay well." I answered and let the magic flow back.
The legged rapt finally saw me coming back, from the same wall I had vanished in, carrying a tray of the monster food she was so fond of. The smell of it reached the beasts around and they squirmed and thrashed for it.
I had, per her command, summoned enough to share.
And so it became this strange scene of wounded monsters in the dark, devouring food from nowhere in a small feast. That did nothing for their fate, nor even for their pain but in the minutes that followed, their cries receded.
She was eating too, joyfully at first, so much so that I had to keep the chains intact for her.
Then, her mood mellowed.
"Anything the matter?" I almost joked.
"I miss him..."
Her voice had been a whisper.
There were times when I could read monsters like open books. This was not one of them. Was it dawning on her what a farce this all was? That little adventure of hers while waiting for the end of an era?
She forced herself to eat some more but just could not anymore.
I started to caress her back, felt her trembling and that wasn't fear. She had started to sob.
"We are saving the world, right?" She begged.
"We are, Caline." I lied. "We are."