Tara blanched, staring at what was, without a doubt, the most shit she had ever seen. Even more disturbing than the sight was the smell—or lack of it. That she might have grown accustomed to the smell of such filth made a cold sweat drip down her back.
“You, uh…we’re gonna clean…all of this?” Yuma asked from her side, the broom held loosely in her trembling hands.
“Not yet,” a gruff voice responded.
“I will do my work firssst,” a smooth, pleasant voice followed.
A figure about a head taller than Tara strode to the front of the group, hands held before them. They wore a strange pair of leather suspenders over what seemed to be a white robe. The sleeves of the robe were flowing and loose, and the suspenders were tied off at the calves.
Perhaps these features were what Tara’s eyes focused on first due to a subconscious need to find the familiar amidst the strange, as that was all that was familiar.
The head of a goat emerged from a large collar in the robe; its gray fur was long and well-kept, longer on the chin than the rest of its head, resembling a goatee. Beside it was the head of a snake with green scales so dark they were almost black, though they reflected a brilliant verdance when the light struck them.
The heads were attached to a humanoid torso, with long fingernails that curved into claws. There was a mishmash of fur and scales on the exposed portion of their arms, as if a snake, goat, and human were haphazardly smashed together.
Legs that hinged backward and ended in hooves supported them, and a tail of glistening scales swayed from behind. The snake’s eyes were a brilliant green and slitted, while the goat’s were a dull yellow, with rectangular pupils.
Theron had introduced the individual.
“This here’s Seti. They’re in charge of the farm, and they’ll be showin’ you around. Let me just head off a couple of questions: yes, they’re a chimera.
“No, they’re not sensitive about it. Yes, each head thinks independently. No, I don’t know which controls the body or how any of that works.
“You can ask them. I wish you luck, if you do. One head doesn’t say more than two words at a time; the other—you’ll wish they were so restrained.
“Alright, Seti can open the door whenever you’re ready to head back to your bunks. I gotta get back to cooking—to chefing, I mean.”
A spark ignited in Seti’s hands, growing into an inferno that they tossed casually into the barn. Tara tensed instinctively, prepared for the barn to be reduced to cinders as searing heat blasted out the wide double doors. In a flash, the fire died, revealing a barn that was fully intact, now covered in ash and soot, but no longer piled with animal waste.
“Just the ashes,” the goat’s head said, its voice like shifting gravel.
The group stared at the smoke billowing out of the doors, ash blowing out from a wind that sprang up from…somewhere. The whole thing was surreal. They were inside Nemesis, yet there was wind. In fact, Tara felt as if she might wake up at any moment and chuckle at this dream’s absurdity.
“How could this wooden structure possibly survive such a flame?” Yuma muttered, likely more to herself than anyone.
“Ah, that’sss thanksss to the blackwood,” the snake said, its voice smooth, like the timbre of a gentle breeze.
Tara studied the barn, huge but otherwise unremarkable. It was made of wood, clearly, but she had assumed it was painted black. When she saw the flames, she began to suspect it was blackened from constant scorching.
“How does its color help?” Yuma replied, inquisitive.
“Blackwood growsss along the Crater’sss northern rim. They’re the only treesss to sssurvive the Ssskyfade impact, thisss clossse to itsss origin, anyway. Much more than sssurvive, they’ve thrived, naturally resssissstant to flamesss,” Seti explained.
Seti’s heads had this uncomfortable habit of acting independently. While dusting their hands off on their suspenders, the goat head seemed focused on the barn interior, while the snake head was twisted around, staring at the group behind, its neck flaps flaring open and shut like a cobra’s.
“Who’s controlling the body right now?” Tara blurted, slapping a hand over her mouth the instant the words left it.
“I am,” the goat said.
“I am,” the snake replied at the same time.
The chimera walked over to the doors, opened them fully, and motioned the group inside, unfazed by the contradiction. The group traded glances before shrugging and heading inside.
Contrary to the size of the barn, there were only a few stalls lining the walls. There was a large, open area at the front with a couple of troughs where the animals could graze, and the wooden floor was unevenly pressed by hooves.
Numa dropped a brush in Tara’s hand. She glanced at Numa with an eyebrow raised, but received only a shrug in response. She sighed, realizing that she had actually wished for this not an hour ago, though she could not decide whether scrubbing on her hands and knees was better or worse than digging holes.
“Theron is the chef, Ramose is the overseer…what’s your title?” one of the others asked Seti, dunking a mop into a bucket of water. “Are you like…the beastkeeper? Farmer, maybe?”
“Tanner,” the goat grunted, producing a bucket large enough for Tara to sit in.
It thumped to the ground, drawing everyone’s attention. Yuma glanced back from where she was sweeping near the entrance.
“What is that for?” she asked.
“Toilet,” the goat grunted again.
A silence stretched across the barn, the group all looking at each other, as if waiting for someone to explain further.
“The animals…are trained to go in buckets?” Yuma asked.
“No. Didn’t you see the piles of shit?” the goat snorted.
“The bucket isss for all of you. We do not wassste sssuch preciousss resssourcesss here. Ammonia isss not alwaysss easssy to come by, particularly if you are sssqueamishhh,” the snake said, and Tara was positive that it was smiling.
Her excruciating mana circulation exercises were looking better and better by the minute.
————————————————————
Nephthys watched the group clean, her gaze easily piercing the hundreds of feet that separated the barn from the island she stood upon. A great beast fluffed its feathers behind her, the nearest of a flock resting close by.
Resembling a colossal stork, its beak was thinner and lined with sharp teeth. Its plumage was bright blue on the underside and vibrant green on top, and its eyes were angled in a way that made it look perpetually angry.
The birds reared back, flapping their gigantic wings menacingly as Ramose strode by, completely unbothered by the display.
“Ah, Seti will be a good caretaker for the day. Their presence simply requires some…hmm, getting used to,” he remarked, standing slightly behind Nephthys with his hands clasped behind his back.
They stood atop one of the two middle islands, floating hundreds of feet above the lake below. This was the habitat for the coetz, incredibly rare birds that produced a variety of valuable items, whether their feathers, famed for their attunement to wind, their meat, which could feed even a max-level person for an entire day, or their eggs, which were a near panacea.
They were neutral to Nephthys’s presence, but they disliked Ramose for some reason. Perhaps devas had some sort of avian lineage that these birds disagreed with?
Ramose seemed ever-present, which was beginning to grate on her. Addy lived alone and liked it that way. Here, in her own guild, though? She was surprised he had not yet followed her into the bathroom. If he was trying to witness her slipping up, he was not being very subtle about it.
Still, his presence was timely, in this instance.
“I will be leaving soon. Perhaps in a few days, perhaps a few weeks,” she declared.
Though he was behind her, Nephthys perceived his eyebrows climb his forehead.
“Might I ask where you will be going, my lady?”
“South,” she answered simply.
Ramose’s mouth hung open, as if to ask another question, but he thought better of it. He stared out over the core for a few minutes, thinking. Eventually, he responded.
“Ah, I see. You do not intend for them to stay here, then?” he asked.
“They are not prisoners, but they cannot survive in the Crater, so they are effectively stuck here unless we escort them elsewhere. They cannot eat our food, and our stores are not unlimited. Though not yet dire, the clock is ticking.
“Based on our scouts’ reports, sending them back to the Peaks would be no better than letting them loose in the Crater to die. No civilization lies to the north, as far as we know, so we have only one option.
“We must hope that some remnant of the Vadenlaudian expedition survived along the temperate coast to the south and escort these people there. I will scout it myself first. Reestablishing a connection to civilization is a goal of mine, even discounting the needs of the former slaves,” Nephthys finished, crossing her arms in front of her.
“I see. That makes sense, my lady. Might I ask why you do not consider the civilians remaining here an option? Surely, if one of our goals is already to make contact with civilization, securing the resources to feed and house these people here in Nemesis would be trivial,” Ramose reasoned.
Nephthys turned to look back at him.
“We are a guild, not a nation,” she said firmly, turning back to watch the farm below.
She would not rule.
Nemesis would remain a guild, and they would interface with the rest of the world as such.
————————————————————
Beneath the ground, far, far below, magma swirled and writhed, flowing in tight tubes. It gathered in enormous chambers before the growing pressure of tons of liquid rock pressing together squeezed it out through cracks and crevices all throughout and beneath the Crater.
One of these chambers, a great gathering of magma from an offshoot of the Veilpiercer’s chamber, was vibrating. The walls of the chamber, the molten rock itself, rattled and shook in a regular cadence, almost like breathing.
This magmic breathing had remained regular for hundreds of years, the chamber’s contents undisturbed. However, something was amiss. The breathing was becoming irregular, erratic.
It was disturbed.
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