Chapter Text
he question wasn’t particularly loud, but it seemed to reverb in an odd way. As if there was more weight to the words then there should have been.
Almost like something important was happening.
Ha! As if.
Mary’s lips curled into a sneer.
“What do you mean ‘a deal’? I mean a deal, a trade, a service for a power and a power for a service!”
Mary managed to twist her already half broken body enough to sneer directly at the Pale King, her neck bending in such a way that just added another layer of strain to her body.
“You’re a god, don’t pretend to be confused at what I mean! Mortals are the prey of gods, of course you know what a deal is.”
The Pale Wyrm seemed to bunch up, buzzing at Mary from where she still laid prone on the floor of the throne room,
He glowed brighter, hissing with barred teeth as he snarled at her. “I am the Pale Light, the God of Knowledge. I was the one to bring language to the world, the one to bring understanding. Do not patronize me with your nonsense!”
The Pale King scuttled closer, dragging his cloak through the orange of her blood as he came close enough to snarl in her face.
“I do not know what a deal is, I do not know what service you are speaking of, of what power is sustaining you! What blasphemy have you brought to my Kingdom, you mad creature?”
He looked mad.
He looked furious.
He looked self-righteous and thunderous.
Like he was just snarky comment away from striking her down and ending it all.
He looked like- like he really didn’t know what Mary was talking about.
“. . . you don’t know what a deal is.”
The words tasted oddly on her tongue, almost like water after nothing but alcohol. Like the first bit of truth she had tasted in entirely too long.
“You don’t know what a deal is.”
The creature looked up at him, seemingly in shock.
Her confusion was obvious even on such unfamiliar features, and the Pale King had a moment where he thought he was finally going to get an answer to one of his many questions.
But then the creature ignored him entirely as she scrambled in her blood, limbs dragging oddly as she spoke to herself.
“-said he was a God of knowledge, that could be a lie though? But even then, it does him no good to push this angle, what could he get out of it? And the Radiance, she never used the word deal.”
The creature managed to get to her feet, nearly falling as she slid in her own blood, one leg shaking under her weight. She grabbed the Pure Vessel, using it as a support as she dragged herself upright, ignoring the way that the Pure Vessel’s stared down at her, at the blood that was left smeared across the Vessel’s shell.
The Pale King shuddered, wings flicking in the air, as he watched this infected creature touch his Vessel.
He wanted to yank the made creature away, wanted to rip her head off just for the crime of getting that disgusting orange on his Vessel.
But no.
No. He needed more information, he needed to get to the bottom of this.
He ignored the way that his Pure Vessel was radiating a similar anger and distaste. he was just projecting, just applying his own emotions to the Pure Vessel. It was empty, it was hollow.
“I used the word deal. She was making promises though? But it’s not like she couldn’t lie, but even if she was lying . . . but I felt the deal, I- we both felt that.”
She was staring at her feet, seeming to looking at the pooling blood for answers, looking into its sickly glow for an explanation as she continued to speak.
“She was confused, she was- she is still asking questions. Oh, oh, those were leading questions. She was trying to get me to explain- “
The creature stopped
“She got lucky!??!”
The creature, who had been ignoring the room and only speaking to herself had been working herself into a fuss.
And in doing so, had been brightening.
The orange glow that had never gone away, but had dimmed over time, had brightened enough to make her hard to look at, had made shadows be cast around the room.
All the surrounding bugs had taken many steps backwards as the glow had brightened, and the creature rambling had taken an even crazier edge. But as the creature had screamed those last words, they pressed themselves to the walls, keeping as far from the enraged infected as they could.
“That Bitch! That fluffy damned whor*! She didn’t even do this on purpose!? She just used me and didn’t even plan to pay up on her end, she was probably just as surprised she- she- “
A pause, the glow didn’t so much as dim as it guttered, flagging for a moment before brightening even more.
A smile cracked over the creature’s face, nearly making a spot light in the room as her blood coated teeth were put on display.
“She doesn’t know the penalty.”
A pause.
“Heh. Ha. HA! HAAHAHAHA!”
The creature started to laugh, her voice echoing in the chamber seeming to grow louder and louder as she gave into her mirth, like she had just heard the funniest joke.
The Pure Vessel, the only thing in the room that hadn’t even subconsciously backed away from the creature’s display of infected madness was lit from the bottom by the strobing lights of the laughing creature. It stood as solidly as a pillar over the mad creature, it’s hands hovering over her, ready to slam her to the ground at a moment’s notice.
The contrast sharper than ever on the places that the creature was touching the Pure Vessel. It was the only dark spot in the room, it’s uncovered void body consuming the light that was shed from the creature.
The Pure Vessel had barely moved, had not done anything that would imply emotion.
But as the creature’s light and mirth grew, the shadows that trailed over the Pure Vessel seemed to grow . . . hungry.
The Pure Vessel’s shadow was lengthened unnaturally by the infected creature’s glow, flickering and dancing in the strobing light. A predator posed to strike, the shadows seeming to grow deeper and deeper even as the light brightened.
Nearly becoming solid as the Pure Vessel nearly surrounded the infected creature with its arms, seeming to just be waiting for the right moment to snare it once more, and swallow the blinding light into itself.
The Pale King found his voice, having to shout over the laughter.
“Empty the room!”
Mary had gone over the edge, off the deep end and it was a good thing that she didn’t need air anymore, because she couldn’t keep a breath in her long enough.
She hurt, everything hurt, and the mad laughter that had her in its grip was shifting things inside of her that she knew were broken bones.
But f*ck it!
What did it matter!
Mary was leaning against her torturer, touching them like it was a totally regular thing to do, like she was always getting the sh*t beat out of her every Tuesday and then going to get a beer with the one who broke her legs.
She was whooping with laughter, fingers digging into some hidden seam on the knight as she felt everything had thought she knew shatter down on the absolutely blood coated in her own infected blood.
The Radiance, the bitch that had jailed her to this undead existence, had just gotten lucky? The God hadn’t known what she was doing and had simply stumbled unto this deal with nothing but Mary’s own expectations of what was happening?!!?
Oh, she was going to kill the fluffy c*nt.
She as going to make her regret ever agreeing to the deal.
Because this? This changed everything!
The power had changed hands, the deal had turned on its head.
Because in a deal, knowledge was power, and now it was Mary who was the devil.
Because before, she had thought that the Radiance had known not to break the deal! She had thought that this was all just a trick by the Radiance to make Mary be the first one to welch on it and get enslaved for forever.
But the Radiance didn’t know!
And that meant that all Mary had to do, was make her break the deal, and then she would be free.
She’d be dead, but at least she wouldn’t be living like this anymore!
Mary didn’t know how long she would have laughed, how long this mental break would have gone on for.
But she didn’t have to know, because the knight beside her, who hadn’t moved at all during her breakdown, during her pawing at them and using them as a support, pressed one of their hands under her chin and forced her jaw closed, choking her on a laugh.
Mary jerked, body having an instinctive moment of trying to save itself from choking, her own hands gripping the knight’s wrist in an attempt to rip it away from her.
But it was like iron, she wasn’t even able to make the knight shift their grip.
She struggled for a moment, but it was like by closing her mouth, they had managed to finally get air to her brain.
Mary was coming back to herself, back to the moment.
Things had changed around her; the great hall had emptied of bugs. Now there were only a bare handful left, no more than three, counting the knight behind her.
There was the one-eyed mayor guy and the Pale King.
The Pale King was still standing in front of her, though he had moved back a few steps.
He seemed to be waiting for Mary to take in the room, to come back to herself, and then he said in a tone of voice like he had been repeating it for a while.
“Mad thing. Are you finally able to speak sense?”
For a moment, Mary felt a giggle build up, but she choked it back.
A smile crawled across her face once more, but something in it must have hinted at sanity because with a wave of the Pale King’s hand, the knight released her jaw.
Mary worked her jaw for a moment, the ache in it speaking of even more damage to her apparently fragile skeleton.
The Pale King held eye contact with her even as he bared his teeth.
“Mad thing, you will tell me everything you know about the Radiance, about the deal that you speak of. About the penalty that brought you such mirth. Or else I will rip it from you with my teeth”
Gone was the attempted courtly attitude of before, now he was a Wyrm. A creature of destruction and a million teeth.
But still ultimately, a god of knowledge.
This creature had come to a realization, something that had brought the viscous thing such joy.
Something about the Radiance and this deal that had been made between them.
Mary felt her smile widen enough to make the wounds on her lips open up and bleed a new.
It was almost, almost laughable.
But Mary had already spent too long laughing.
This wyrm, this GOD was trying to intimidate her with the threat of pain.
At his own teeth! That would be horrifying, would be scary even, if it wasn’t for one single thing.
“. . . you really think that’s going to work? That I’m so dumb to think that you would be willing to see if putting your mouth on something so visibly infected as I am wouldn’t affect a God? Oh please, just try it, take a bite out of me, I’m sure that it won’t have any kind of terrible consequences at all~”
Mary was laughing in the face of a royalty, and she was just too high off of her own realization to care about more pain.
She didn’t have a single part of her that wasn’t bruised, bleeding, or fractured.
She had long since gone numb, the pain present but dull.
What would some bite marks do to tip the scales?
Hell, maybe she could take down two gods with her!
The Pale King snarled and flex his wings, but probably knew that he couldn’t really back up his threats.
But before Mary could antagonize the Pale King again, another voice cut through the room.
“How did you keep your mind despite the infection? Was it because of the deal you made?”
The bug, what was his name- the one-eyed mayor, asked the question from a healthy distance away from Mary. He was behind and to the side of the Pale King, having followed the god down the stairs.
He asked her quizzically, managing to cut off the thoughts of both the Pale King and Mary herself.
And something about him, something about how she was still riding high off of her new realization, made Mary actually answer.
“My mind? You can’t be mindless, and have a deal. You have to be aware of yourself the whole time. That’s what makes a deal so bad.”
Lurien stepped forward, skirting around the edges of the pool of blood that was still spreading around the wounded creature. He kept well within the reach of his king, not even thinking of leaving the protection that was offered.
But he moved out from behind his god, letting the creature get a better look at him, drawing her attention away from the god.
Lurien had learned that often bugs could be overwhelmed by the grandeur of the Pale King and that focusing on a mortal could help them calm.
It was not even slightly the same but perhaps the effect would still work
“So, a deal is something that you can make? I assume that it is different from a common business agreement.”
The creature’s eyes followed Lurien as he stepped away from the Pale King, the only way he was able to tell was from the strange black circle that was centered in the middle of the glowing circles. Her head was tilted at a strange angle, the blood that was below her being disturbed at the movements she made to watch him. The creature was seemingly only focused on him, turning away from the Pale King to follow his progress.
She was practically hanging from her grip on the Pure Vessel’s arm, leaning back against the Void made creature, uncaring of the fact that they had been the one to cause most of her pain, uncaring of the blood that she was rubbing into the Vessel. Treating it as nothing but a tool to use to keep her standing.
It was . . . unsettling to see a creature so badly infected care so little for the very tool that was meant to contain the sickness.
“A deal, is a . . . it is self-controlled, it’s checks and balances that you can only hope to correctly measure out.”
As Mary explained the deal, she was going over her own plan in her head.
How to make the Radiance welch on the deal, break it herself.
What the rules had to be, what she had missed, what loopholes had to exist.
“It’s- it’s my word versus yours, it’s a promise as a trap. It’s a desperate scramble and a- “Mary made a frustrated noise, trying and failing to find the right words. How can you sum up an entire culturally charged thing like a deal without speaking for hours?
“I offered my assistance, and she offered my life. But I think- I- I didn’t demand enough. Of course! The price didn’t match the demand. I didn’t know that I was resurrecting the power of a fallen god. And the single life of a mortal was not worth that! My life wasn’t worth that at all.” Mary flailed a hand in the air for emphasis, releasing her hold on the knight for just a moment, but having to clamp it down on their hip when her left leg collapsed under her weight.
She started to sink downward, her grip slick with blood and the knight beside her seeming to be doing an impression of an angry wall.
But Mary didn’t care, she was surprised to have managed even that much time on her feet. Standing wasn’t good for blood loss, and she was certain that she had gained another coat of orange as she had kept herself standing.
She switched her grip to the knight’s leg, letting herself slip downwards, body rubbing against the weirdly frictionless shell, until she was resting on the floor again, leaning on the knight’s leg while her arms were wrapped around it, taking a petty pleasure in knowing that she was getting her blood all over them.
But even as she changed altitude, she kept talking.
“But the bitch didn’t know she was making a deal with me, she was probably lying about helping me at all, was just gonna have me be another mindless zombie. But she made a deal, and deals are either fulfilled or they are broken, and she didn’t know there was even anything to break.”
Mary was thinking it through even as she spoke aloud, explaining it to herself and this masked bug.
“But . . . because she didn’t know to take advantage of me, the deal balanced itself out. My price was my needs being taken care of? Then I would never need again while the deal was in effect.”
Mary’s mouth turned down at the edges, her eyes catching on the masked face once again. Catching on the single eye, on the unnatural mask that hid the bug’s face.
“I made the most classic of deals, the type of deal that always ends badly, ends with tragedy.”
Mary felt the manic energy rise in her again, felt like she was on a stage as she once more got dramatic with her words, with her body.
But hell, she was living a life this stupid and twisty, she might as well get Shakespearian with it!
She kept one hand clinging to the knight’s leg as she waved the other in the air, accenting her words with movement. Her forehead was pressed to their leg, but her smile still split her face in a sort of lethargic mirth. She had nothing to prove, no audience to entertain, but she still had the urge to put on a show,
“It’s the type of deal that drags others to a similar fate! I made a deal with the Radiance. In exchange for all of my needs being met, then I would spread her name. She would save me from death, and I would save her from being forgotten.”
Mary waved her hand down her blood covered and splayed body, “And you can all see how that turned out for me.”
And Lurien did see. He looked upon this creature with her gaping wounds that sluggishly bled. At the orange of infection that permeated her entire being and lit her with rancid light from within. At the thick bands of oddly colored flesh that one would think was a natural pattern if it were not for how there were places that perfectly matched the size of the Pure Vessel’s hands.
At the way that she clung to the Pure Vessel that stood above her, the creature that was made to contain the infection, at the way that she ignored the damage done to her to keep going, to keep interacting with the living world.
The contrast was alarming, the difference between something made to imitate life, and a creature that life clung to like a parasite.
He did not know what this creature had been before this, what she had been like, how sane she had been before, but he could still see how she had been ravaged by this ‘deal’.
“The deals always end in . . . tragedy? Why make one if you know how it will end?”
Why willingly trade acid for water, even if both will kill you?
The creature’s eyes rolled in her head, the pupils turning in a circle while her head followed the motion, the unsettling motion seeming to bleed insult and exasperation.
“Why do you scream when you fall? Why do you struggle when you drown? I was dying, I was desperate. “
The creature, rested her head once more on the Pure Vessel’s leg clutching in with her orange stained hands, using it once more as a pillar she was questioned. Uncaring that it was a tool that would surely be used too kill her.
“I thought I had nothing to lose, so why not take the gamble? Why not see if I could be one of the few who make it out?”
The creature began to pat around herself before her hand landed on the soiled fabric of the Pure Vessel’s cloak. She dragged it’s sodden weight from the ground and across herself, covering up her soft body. The orange-soaked fabric clung to her, but she seemed determined to have it cover her.
“Deals always end in tragedy, but not always for the mortal. There are stories, though few, of mortals managing to trick and twist the deal. Switching the fates of the dealmakers. The reward is almost never worth the risk, but . . .”
And here the creature turned her head back toward the Pale King, looking at him with mad glowing eyes, face split in a smile that had no warmth to it.
A creature so weak that it couldn’t stand, a mind so disjointed that only every third word made sense. A creature that was so sick, so infected that it cast more light than a lumafly.
It was challenging the reigning god of Hallownest directly.
It- she- was so sure of herself that she could cling to the leg of the Pure Vessel, her unnatural enemy, and fear neither it nor the good who made it.
Either this creature was even crazier than anyone could assume.
Or there was still a piece of the puzzle missing.
There was still something that this creature knew that alluded them all.
“It’s always worthwhile to make a god regret ever thinking they could use you.”
The grin grew wider even as her bright eyes narrowed, the flesh around her mouth splitting once more to add fresh blood to her show of teeth.
“The desperate are the prey of dealmakers, and there is nothing more satisfying than turning the ones preying on you desperate.”
A feeling not unlike a slick touch went down Lurien’s spine, a premonition if you would, as he also turned his gaze toward his king.
His God.
Who had already made several attempts at saving his dying kingdom.
Who could possibly be described,
-as desperate.
The Pale King stared down at this creature.
At this- this- Deal Maker who sat in a puddle of her own infected blood. At this creature who clung to his Pure Vessel with her tainted hands and a grin on her face.
At a creature who should be dead, a creature who should be mad with light.
At a creature who was mad, but only with rage and not false dreams.
She was a creature who could bind a god to their word. Could make the Radiance honor all of her promises, who could force the Goddess to pay up for her offers of power.
Because the Pale King had listened to her words and he had realized what had happened.
The Radiance was a Goddess of dreams, of inspiration and light.
She had never been a physical threat, only able to lead others to becoming strong.
Her magic had been powerful, but his had been stronger still.
Her body had broken beneath his teeth, been crushed even as she screamed and cast and struggled.
Her power relied on others.
On giving them what they wanted even as they never woke from the sweet dreams that she trapped them in.
There was no doubt that she had told this creature what it wanted to hear, had agreed to the Deal Maker’s words without thought, had promised whatever she wanted with no intention to follow through.
And had been just as trapped in this deal as the creature was.
The Radiance’s power does not- does not do this.
It does not lengthen life, it does not keep a bug’s body from death. She can trap a mind but not save a body. She can force a body into a meditative state that would allow it to continue past its expiration but . . .
But never has a bug still continued with a conscious mind in such a state.
The deal has trapped the Deal Maker’s mind in her own infected body. Chained a ghost to a corpse.
The Radiance must have killed her before the deal was even made, and this deal is what forced the creature to stay in this realm, kept from death.
Boon or burden, it does not matter. This creature was tortured by her continued existence, and wanted a true death.
Wanted a true death enough to antagonize a different god. Wanted a truth death enough to try and taunt an emotion out of the Pure Vessel.
Wanted it enough to perhaps succeed at all she set out to do.
But.
By her own words, by her own joyous laughter, there was a way to ‘break’ the deal.
A way that she had been aware of the entire time she had been cursed with this existence. A way that she hadn’t even contemplated until she had put together that the Higher Beings of Hallownest did not know of the Deal that she spoke of.
Of a penalty.
A penalty that the Radiance does not know of.
A penalty that brought the vicious creature so much joy to even contemplate inflicting on the one that she blamed for her current fate.
The Pale Kin was having . . . thoughts.
Thoughts about what exactly this creature, this Deal Maker was. About what could have caused a species of bug to view themselves as prey to gods, and driven them to gamble with terrible fates at the mere chance of taking a god down to that fate with them. At what must have transpired to create a type of magic that seemed to have some level of intelligence, that was able to bind two creatures to a transaction that could transfer power like this. That could twist a god’s power to accomplish things so outside of their ability.
That could do something worse than this, to whomever would attempt to break a deal.
At how he could make it so that only He would have to pay whatever price that would be.
He.
He needed more information first.
“What. Is the penalty.”
The Pale King could feel Lurien’s gaze on him intensify as he asked that question.
His dreamer was quite smart, and for a moment the Pale King was relieved that it was Lurien with him at this moment, for his other dreamers would have started screaming at him by this point, already knowing what he was planning to do.
But Lurien, his dear Watcher. He was an earnest worshipper of the Pale Light, and thought that his God of Knowledge had some plan.
But the Pale King had made plans, had made agreements and plans and sacrifices before, and was still just holding the tattered remains of his efforts as his kingdom still collapsed around him despite his efforts to save it.
He had long passed desperate.
The Deal Maker, still collapsed at the feet of his Pure Vessel, let her head lean against the void black leg. Her body had dimmed, the elation and the energy it had brought having drained away with the blood that still pooled to the floor.
She flashed her teeth at him once more.
“Oh, the penalty? It’s quite terrible you know! A real bad ending to an already terrible ordeal. It’s one that I thought I was going to have to succumb to, just to get out of a different kind of hell.”
The Deal Maker made an odd noise, like a Stag huffing out a breath, as she rolled her head back, dragging the strange silk like growths against the Pure Vessel’s leg.
“But it turns out that the Radiance was putting me though this torture without even knowing what she was driving me to! She was being cruel for no reason! She has no idea what she could win, oooor~”, and her grin grew vicious once more, “what she can lose.”
The Pale King didn’t need these pretty words. He needed an answer.
“What. Is. The Penalty?”
The Deal Maker sneered at him, pushing away from the Pure Vessel’s legs in order to lean toward him, but almost falling over and having to slap a hand into the blood below her to keep from toppling over.
After correcting her balance, her eyes having widened and her glow brightening at her near fall, she continued to bare her teeth at him.
“Why are you asking? It’s not going to concern you, you don’t even know how to make a deal. And I don’t want it getting back to her most Rancidness. I don’t know how much information she can get out of the ones watching, but I- “
The Pale King had had enough.
With a quick sharp gesture at his Pure Vessel, he lifted the order that he had placed when the other bugs had left the room.
The order that would keep the Pure Vessel still. An order that was usually used for when the Pale King simply wanted to keep the Pure Vessel in position so that it could be properly dressed, or to be cleaned up after training.
An order that he had never truly thought of as restraining the Pure Vessel before.
But as the order was released and the Pure Vessel immediately yanked their leg from the Deal Maker’s grip, causing her to fall all the way to the floor with a startled sound, it could be nothing but a restraint.
The Pure Vessel crouched, joints moving smoothly and silently as it lowered itself to the ground, as it raised a single hand and tangled it onto the silk that sprouted from the Deal Maker’s head.
The void black hand was painted orange as it firmed its grip and dragged the Deal Maker’s head back once more, straining her neck to its limits as it began to rise, forcing the Deal Maker’s body to follow it upward.
The Deal Maker cried out as she was first forced to kneel and then dragged upward to standing, her legs collapsing out from under her for less than a moment before the Pure Vessel raised to its full height, and dangled the Deal Maker above the ground.
Her hands smeared more orange on the Pure Vessel’s wrist as she made a sharp noise, feet kicking feebly and hands attempting to take some of the strain off of her scalp.
“AHHH! No! Stop-stop-stop! You’ll rip my skin off! f*ck, sh*t, damned f*cking- I’ll tell you! I’ll say it!”
The Pure Vessel released its grip on the Deal Maker, letting her fall to the ground with a crash.
She snarled and hissed for a moment, hands clutching at her head and curled up on her side, nothing but curses spewing from her lips.
But eventually, and with only a threatening tap from the Pure Vessel’s foot that made her cower away, she glared up at the Pure Vessel before switching her gaze to the Pale King.
She spit out her answer.
“It’s your soul. If you break a deal, you forfeit your soul to be used however the other wants.”
What.
“What?”
The Deal Maker frowned at the Pale King.
“What do you mean what? That’s the penalty!”
The Pale King was flabbergasted, even Lurien was boggling at the Deal Maker on the floor.
Even the Pure Vessel hands had twitched.
“Soul? That’s all? You only get soul if you break a deal?!”
The creature on the ground stared up at the Pale King.
“Wh- that’s all? THAT’S ALL?!?! You are- are you serious!”
Lurien was taken aback by the venom in her voice as her volume picked up once again.
The Pale King hissed at her, his teeth showing in a threat display.
“Soul. All of this for soul? You helped the Radiance poison my people, you put yourself through this pain and struggle, just for some soul?! If soul was so precious to you, I could have given it to you!”
The creature reared back at that, the look on her face as if she had just been slapped. She stared, mouth gaping at the Pale King for a moment.
And then her face twisted, her teeth bared once more as she snarled at the Pale King, her glow kicking up once again. She was enraged, embroiled with hate.
She looked like she might just drag herself across the floor and try and kill the Pale King with her broken body.
“YOU BASTARD! Are you really so high and f*cking mighty to not care about someone’s soul? To just give them away like it’s spare change?! Do you not care about the souls of your citizens? Of those around you? Are they just things to just used and thrown away like trash?”
She was scrabbling at the ground again, trying to forced her body off of the ground, trying to forced her legs below her even as she yelled at the god.
“f*cking gods! Always to high up, so far above the clouds! Oh, I am going to drag you down, I’m gonna rip your soul from you, give you the same fate as the damned Radiance! You don’t deserve to be worshiped, you don’t deserve to breath! I’m going to rip you apart, drown you in your blood, drown you in my blood! You will- wheeze!”
As she had screamed at the Pale King, she had been dragging herself forward, giving up on standing, on even crawling.
She had been dragging herself forward with her arms, her eyes wild, infected blood spraying from her mouth as she had forced herself forward.
The Pure Vessel had placed a foot on her back, pinning her in place and squeezing the air out of her.
The creature scrabbled uselessly, flinging her hands back and trying to grip the foot of the Pure Vessel, but she couldn’t reach from her angle, and it wouldn’t do her any good if she could.
The Pure Vessel was much stronger than her, as had been seen.
She was soundly pinned, and much closer to the edge of the orange lake than she had been a few moments ago. The trail she had made while dragging herself an odd streak of white in the flood of orange.
And Lurien, the watcher, the dreamer, the custodian of the City of Tears, and as such the Soul Sanctum, had a suspicion.
He approached with caution, staying out of reach, but getting as close as his own comfort allowed. His approached drew her eye, the lack of air keeping her quiet even as she stared at him with wild eyes, condemning him and begging him in the same look.
He crouched, parting his cloak enough to allow himself to reach out a single hand, focusing. With an internal struggle, he managed to force a few drops of soul into his palm, the white fluid forming a shallow glowing puddle in his hand.
“Creature, soul is easy to obtain here. It is no guarded resource, it is not scarce. It can be given away, or stolen in battle. It can be taken straight from the water and slowly absorbed from the air. If you fear losing your soul, we can give you more.”
The creature’s orange gaze stayed fixated on Lurien’s hand for a few moments, before her eyes flicked to his masked face and back again.
She wheezed again.
Ah.
Right.
“Pure Vessel, let her speak.”
The Pure Vessel did not move for a moment, waiting to see if the Pale King would veto that order as was protocol, but then the pressure that it had been using to keep the creature pinned lightened and the creature’s body positively inflated with the amount of air that she sucked in.
She made odd noises for a moment, more blood splattering from her mouth as she seemed to try and clear her throat, body shuddering with the motions of it.
But she stopped, looked at him and then his hand. She raised a single hand and Lurien had to force himself not to flinch back at the movement. But she just pointed at the soul in his hand and said,
“That’s not a soul.”
Mary was going to give the masked guy the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t have a handful of glowing cum.
Mostly because she had seen it condense on his palm, and also, she was pretty sure that bugs didn’t produce cum?
But that’s sure what it looked like.
But whatever the ‘not cum’ was it sure as hell wasn’t a soul.
Probably.
No. nonono.
There was no way that was someone’s soul!
It was too . . . low stakes?
And this guy was a mortal, she was pretty sure, like it would have been mentioned if he was also a god, right?
No, yeah, it would have been mentioned.
Yes, this was a mortal, squatting before her. Hand, chitin crusted and lacking all of the fingers that it would need to be, with a pool of something that he was calling soul gently dripping to the floor.
Mary was pretty sure, that the only reason that someone would let a Soul, drip to the floor would be as some sort of villainous power move.
She would expect it from the god in front of her, and maybe something similar from the knight on her back, but this guy?
He was absolutely a blind believer of the god.
But . . .
“Is that your soul? Or someone else’s?”
The masked face, though seen at an awkward angle, tilted toward his own hand then back to her.
“It is soul? It is mine, but I could give it to you, and then it would be yours.”
Mary let her face fall back to the floor, had to close one of her eyes to keep the blood out of it as she relaxed for just a moment.
The absurdity of all of this had been wearing at her, had been grinding her down to something fragile but sharp.
She had no problem turning her edge on the god and the knight. The both of them were bastards, monsters, villains that she had no issue with dragging blood from.
But this guy was oddly earnest.
Wrong of course, wrong about so much.
But he hadn’t been the one to cause her problems.
He was at the gods mercy, same as she was.
He had just managed to get the slightly more protective god.
He was a mortal.
He wasn’t the enemy.
. . . Mary could try for him.
Mary didn’t raise her head from the puddle, ignoring the blood that got in her mouth as she asked a question.
“Explain to me, what you think ‘Soul’ is.”
There was a pause before the masked mortal did as she asked, the energy in the room seeming to lower as the lecture went on. Mary’s body went more and more pliant underneath the foot of the knight above her as all of her aches and pains flared to life now that she had shoved her anger away.
Everything just seemed to be hurting more and more, but she did her best to ignore it as she listened to the bug.
The God’s confusion made more sense now.
When she said soul, they thought she meant like, magical energy or something.
Something that was apparently kind of easy to get here.
Ok.
So, she might have jumped the gun on that a bit but still,
“That’s not what soul means for me.”
The mortal was cut off by her words, but at this point he had started talking about how soul could be contained in glass so it wasn’t like it was relevant to what was going on.
The God, who had apparently also been using the masked bug’s lecture to get himself back in order and calm his own tit*, skittered up next to the still squatting bug.
“Then what exactly,” And here he bent down, the closest he’d gotten to her since all of this began, and at his proximity, Mary felt the knight’s foot put just a bit more pressure on her back, not enough to hurt her (more) but enough to give her the message do not move, “does soul mean to you.”
Mary raised her head, tucking an arm under her chest, ignoring the show she was putting on with her tit* and strained her neck too look at the two bugs in front of her.
“First of all, everyone was A Soul. Only the one. You can’t get another unless you take it from someone else, and even if you did take someone else’s it would still be their soul. A soul is what makes someone, someone. It’s what makes a person a person. It is the entirety of their entire life. It grows with their experiences whether or not those experiences are good or bad. All souls are equal, and to lose your soul is to follow it! The body dies, but you are taken with your soul! You can’t separate from it, but it can be taken!”
Mary grumbles at them, shifting herself under the knight’s foot, trying to find a position that didn’t make her broken ribs worse.
“Losing your soul is worse than death! Losing your soul is like, loosing ownership of yourself. It’s worse than being a slave, because then you still have control over your thoughts, your feelings. Losing a soul, is- is-!”
Mary made a little growling noise, trying to explain, trying to put into words what was never really ever explained. Because once someone lost their soul, then that was it! Story over!
Sometimes someone’s loved one’s could get it back, or it could be freed, but it was never really gone into about what a soul was used for.
But it was bad, obviously, entirely, and without a doubt.
It would be worse than death.
Worse than Mary’s current fate.
“If you lose your soul, then someone else has you, can use you, enslave you, change you. Whatever they want! You become a power source to be used up, a slave to be commanded for eternity!”
Mary’s hand slid in her own blood but she managed to center it again, the foot on her back seeming to lighten it’s pressure just a touch to allow her such.
“You are locked away either in an object that they choose to keep you in, or inside of them. It’s an eternal cage that can’t be broken from the inside, because despite how much I would want to be free, She won. She has the right to it as the winner of the deal. The deal that we both entered of our own free will.”
Mary managed to raise her head up to look at the single eyed face of the masked bug.
“The opportunity to get a soul is why deals are made, it’s why a being so powerful would lower themselves to dealing with mortals. You have to agree to your soul being taken, even if it’s by accident or on a gamble. So, whatever it is you have in your hand.”
Mary shook her head.
“That’s not soul.”
Oh.
OH.
The Pale King leaned back, his wings flaring to keep his balance as he shifted his stance with his body and mind,
The Deal Maker’s rage, her venom. It made sense now.
To lose her ‘Soul’ would be to lose her Mind.
Her sentience.
And if what she said was true, then it is not that she would revert to a lower being, but that her sentience, and all that went with it, would be owned by the ‘winner’ of the deal.
Her sentience would be owned by the Radiance.
Owned, controlled, contained.
The Pale King’s eyes cut to his Pure Vessel, still standing in the pool of infected orange blood, with a crack in its head and a foot on the back of the Deal Maker.
Caged.
Movement. Lurien, his Watcher, was shifting just a touch closer to the Deal Maker kept sprawled and pinned on the floor by his Pure Vessel. Pity for this creature surely twisting his heart, the amount of soul that he had managed to harness in his hand dribbling between his fingers as he leaned over her.
The edges of his cloak getting almost too close to the infected blood that still slowly spread from her.
“You would lose-, lose yourself. That is- is quite the gamble to make.”
The Deal Maker flashed her teeth at Lurien once again, but there was no rage in the action, only a certain amount of tired amusem*nt, as if she was sharing a joke with the bug.
“Well, a slow death always seems like the worst thing that could happen to you, until you are truly faced with a much much worse fate.”
The barring of teeth turned sharp, turned hungry. The Deal Maker become a predator before their every eyes. “But now? Now I have a chance! I just need to make the Radiance have a taste of what she has put me through, and she’ll break faster than a dried reed, completely unaware of the price she has to pay!”
The Deal Maker said these words with such confidence, with such vicious victory that for just a moment the Pale King thought that perhaps the creature pinned underneath the Pure Vessel truly had her fate well in hand.
But Lurien, his Watcher, his inquisitive and cautious worshiper, took in the sight of this creature bathed in her own blood, pinned beneath the foot of the Pure Vessel, batter and broken, weak and exhausted, and ask, “How will you do so?”
The Deal Maker froze for a moment, as if shocked at the question.
“What do you mean, ‘how will I do so?”
Lurien, a frown in his voice continued with his questioning, “How will you reach the Radiance? She is no longer in the mortal realm.”
The Deal Maker relaxed into the orange puddle below her.
“Oh, I can enter the dream realm when I sleep. I always do. The Radiance come’s to me herself when I do. It will not be hard to reach her.”
“And what will you do when you do reach her. What can you do?”
And the Deal Maker froze once more, a slightly panicked expression coming over her face, and that was when the Pale King realized something.
That for all of her screaming, for that that infection flowed through her veins. Despite her seemingly un-killable body and fearless words.
The Deal Maker was a mortal.
A weak mortal.
She had no shell, no fighting ability, no powers outside of surviving what has been done to her, and even that had been forced on her by one of the very gods that she despised.
Her only real ability-, her only real ability was . . .
To trap a god in a deal.
. . .
A ‘Deal’ . . .
Once a Deal was created, it could twist a god’s power in order to complete whatever deal had been made, as had been seen with the Radiance and the Deal Maker.
The Radiance was a god of dreams, she could infect minds, and through minds, infect the bodies.
But the Deal had made the Radiance’s power change, had forced the infection to leave mind untouched while the body was forced to survive.
The Deal Maker’s mind had been left untainted, because it was the collateral. A
It was the nature of the Deal!
A deal must be made and broken by a sentient being.
And an infected had no true mind of their own left. No better than a dreaming corpse.
. . .
. . . the Deal Maker said that if the deal was broken, then whoever broke it would have their ‘Soul’ forfeited to the other. That it was the driving factor, the worst penalty that ensured that whatever horrible task or price would be born and that the deal would come to fruition.
But it seemed to the Pale King as if a deal, especially this deal, had no end in sight. Perhaps because of the Radiance did not know to make an end, or because the Deal Make had already accepted what kind of Deal this would be.
The purpose of this Deal was to be broken.
But the Radiance did not know this, she did not know that there was a consequence to breaking the deal. Did not know what was a stake.
She had no reason to think that she might be the one at the mercy of the deal.
. . .
. . .
The Pale King had a million thoughts, a hundred different ways that he could proceed.
He could let the creature go, she was no true danger to him. He could let her scheme by herself and attempt to go after the Radiance while he continued his own plans.
He could detain her, he could try and kill her. He could-
He could make a Deal.
He could let his power be changed, be molded to suit the terms of the deal. He could put his sentience up as collateral. He could shoulder the price of this gamble himself. Bargain with a creature that hated him for his godhood. Gamble with her and put his ‘Soul’ on the line.
His eyes caught on his Pure Vessel once more. The moving monument to his greatest fears and darkest moments.
The Pure Vessel, that was a reminder of the thousands upon thousands of small little bodies and dark eyes that had not managed to escape the abyss.
The cage he had made to contain the infection, the Pure Vessel that would one day be locked away and hidden away behind arrays and sigils like the rest of his sins.
He was already saving his kingdom, he was already taking steps to save what he could of the living.
His sacrifices had already been taken.
But surely, surely-
He could finally pay the price himself?
Mary was laying in her puddle of blood, watching the Pale King watch her.
She knew that there were gears turning behind his eyes, knew that he was thinking of something.
And all she could do was to continue to lay on her stomach, at his mercy.
Because, f*ck, that masked bug had been right.
What could she do?
As much as she wanted to rip and tear apart the Radiance, she was a weak little bitch.
She couldn’t even reach the winged god, not unless the god got low enough for her to reach in her dreams, and even then, what damage could she do that would make breaking the deal worth it?!?
Could the Radiance even die? Could she even feel pain in that realm!?
f*ck, f*ck, f*ck.
Mary had to make the Radiance break the deal. She had too.
Mary was lost in her thoughts, gritting her teeth through the throbbing pain and the slowly cooling blood that was still not drying on her skin, still glowing and leaking from her.
It felt like no time had passed, and no time really had, suddenly the Pale King was moving, was dropping to the blood in front of her, uncaring of the infected orange that immediately began to soak into his robes.
A Mortal’s tainted blood, tainting the God.
There was poetry there, somewhere
He bent his head, forcing eye contact as Mary instinctively snarled up at his approach.
“I wish to make a Deal with you.”
