Somewhere Someplace

“This… this is all that is left?”

“Surely, if we wait longer…more will return, we must wait; that is all… we must wait, more will…return”

“Waiting will not change a single thing; everyone should have returned by now… This is it”

“Almost four…out every five… gone?”

“How could this have happened?!”

“We followed the Warden’s plan just as the Voice instructed!”

“Clearly, you all must have done something wrong, then, to cause this utter failure! What excuses could you possibly levy to justify this…this…catastrophe!”

“We did nothing! Everything went in accordance with the Warden’s predictions until after we initiated the hunt!”

“There were only what? Forty-five outlanders? Yet you all return with only thirty of their cores and masks at such a cost! Fifteen outlanders are still unaccounted for!”

“More than a hundred appeared seven decades ago yet were slaughtered just fine! Never mind all of the rest who ever dared to step into this dominion ever since the Gods entrusted us with this task!”

“You have no right to chastise us! You were part of the last hunt which left one outlander behind! And when was that outlander found? I am waiting…”

“Oh…right, they still haven’t been!”

“We suffered a few injuries, and nothing more! One lost puppy living as a mud-eating mortal is different from fifteen lost puppies at the cost of FOUR out of every FIVE of the Warden’s own! Do not dare attempt to deflect away from your own failings!”

“During the hunt, their core-marks disappeared entirely! We lost the Warden’s sight and could not distinguish dead from alive! We had to rely on our own vision, and they would not let us inspect without being torn apart!”

“We were told these class of outlanders could never disable their core-markers without losing their instruments!”

“Their tactics, divergent; their ferocity, exceptional; their machinations, abundant; these ones were different”

“Purple! These ones were purple! Not blue like the ones before! Out of all of the colors, the Voice never told us there were purple ones! Surely, the Warden must have known! Why were we not told beforehand?!”

“Purple? How could you even tell? It was night! Our night-sight clouds color, they could have been blue; your eyes deceive”

“Bah! Excuses, excuses, excuses! That is all I hear! Outlanders of this category are mundane in their arrogance, no matter what ‘color’ they arrive with! Their arrogance clouded their foresight as with the rest before, blind to our deception; we had the initial advantage; we had the element of surprise! Yet all of you so…utterly failed in executing the Warden’s plan!”

“Even in presence of such added unpredictable happenings and difficulties, none of your excuses could possibly explain why every FOURTH out of every FIFTH are dead! Casualties, deaths. Fine! That could be accepted… but this many?”

“These ones ran away like cowards and thoroughly entrenched themselves! We couldn’t just linger, we had to push!”

“Bah! That’s what they all do!”

“Not in the way these ones had! As was recently said, their tactics were just… different!”

“Protectors. They had more protectors than had been foretold; than the Warden had marked”

“You dare to suggest the Warden was wrong?!”

“No, I dare to only speak the reality of what we saw: there were more protectors than had been foretold, and the Warden was not wrong—more only appeared after we initiated!”

“One encirclement of a forest, one siege of a cave; that is where most of the…death came from, one forsaken encirclement of one forsaken outlander whom we had trapped; that is where most of the protectors swarmed to later into the hunt; that is the answer to all of your chastising!”

“He speaks the truth, even if most dare not to admit… That one focus distracted every one of us, we all gathered as much as the protectors had…”

“We were on the brink of overwhelming them before more protectors spontaneously arrived from that same exact point, we were unprepared for more than what was foretold! Everything dragged itself onwards only for us to be forced to withdraw!”

“Withdraw?! You withdrew and left a single outlander alive?!”

“The Warden and his Voice mandate our absolute secrecy; the mortals must not be made aware of our existence! We had caused too much damage, and the mortals were becoming too alert and energetic! Their armies were responding, what choice did we have!”

“The mortals dare to never question the happenings of the Gods; you could have simply silenced them! A few thousand dead mortals are nothing compared to allowing even a single outlander to survive!”

“So, you speak that you all had lost one single besieged outlander? Seriously, one outlander bested all of you? Truly, truly, this continues to only become worse and worse!”

“Not one outlander, you baboon! The machinations that defended it! Everyone who was there eventually fought them, and we all saw what they were!”

“Conjured! I declare! They were conjured, and that outlander was the source! There is no other explanation! They oozed with the arcane!”

“BUHA! Conjuration? Of protectors? You make me spit! Your excuses now bleed into the realm of delusions! What’s next? The Watcher was meddling with your sight, too?”

“Oh, shut it, you inbred tardigrade! You were not there to witness what we had! It was neither a hunt nor a slaughter, but a forsaken war! Those infernal machinations were unlike anything before! Vile, ferocious, and utterly maddened beasts!”

“He speaks the truth! I fired five lances into one, skewering it clean only for it to flicker with rage and charge into us… It destroyed itself, claiming five others with it… they were aggressive and maddingly suicidal when bested!”

“And they became more maddened the longer it dragged on!”

“You belittle us! You chastise! But if you were there to see what we saw, you would be praising us for having been so close to claiming victory! Were it not for the mortals’ own intervention, we would have taken that abomination of an outlander’s HEAD!”

“But you did not, neither did you with the other missing heads! No degree of excuses nor fictitious delusions can possibly justify this failure!”

“I say we make an example of these failures! They are a disgrace to the Warden and his Voice and to all the Gods!”

“…are you insane?! You seek to further wither what has already greatly dwindled?!”

“You are all inept and worthless, so it would matter little either way!”

“ENOUGH! All of you! Your voices pierce my ears, grating against my very soul! I cannot stand another word!”

“…”

“Greatest One…”

“I SAID SHUT UP!”

“…”

“You all speak of ‘puppies’ forgetting that we hunt wolves; you all speak of ‘slaughter’ forgetting what it is that we do; you speak of ‘arrogance’ of the outlanders, only to display such arrogance before my own ears. Blinded by the last victory and that of your forebearers, even in the neglect of rectifying the failure of the last hunt, even to this day. You have allowed complacency and time to rust at your foundations. Every single one of you failed, even the ones who did not participate.”

“…”

“Now, this is the second time we have allowed outlanders to escape and survive, and this time we will not, cannot, allow them to simply reside. There is no point in making any more raping noises about who to blame, there is only action. Learn and adapt from this failure and let there never be a third. Now that they are aware of our trick and deception, it will not work a second time, so best to start laboring. Find the surviving outlanders and eliminate them. That. Is. All.”

-|||-

“We have disposed of the dead, many mortals had scavenged and found them, however… But they have been dealt with”

“And, as was suspected, some of the unaccounted outlanders were killed during the hunt, we merely failed to retrieve their cores and masks after; five in total”

“Which means ten had survived, not fifteen?”

“Assuming that the mortals did not scavenge their corpses…or we have yet find them; we do not know”

“What we know with certainty one outlander is still alive and is somewhere, and we all are aware of which one”

“The most dangerous of them…”

“That one single outlander is a greater threat to this dominion the Gods had entrusted us to defend than the other nine combined; I am strongly convinced that had that outlander not been present, we would have won without nearly as many deaths… That outlander and its machinations were capable of nearly undoing us all then, and they still are now”

“So, that should be our priority?”

-|||-

“Two surviving puppies have been put down, leaving only those eight”

“Scouring the caverns has worked, it appears that is where they are hiding… You were right, these ones are extremely irritating… Purple rats, all of them”

“This supposed ‘conjuror of machinations’ has yet to be found… This one is hiding among the mortals; that is my greatest hunch…”

“Though without the Warden’s mandate to break our secrecy, we are still limited…and must keep out of mortal sight… Would that we could scour their cities”

“Though, with our current numbers…”

-|||-

“It has been too long! Where is the Voice?! We have not heard from the Warden since! Why?! We need guidance!”

“And what of the Gods?! They entrusted us yet have done nothing for us! We need more! The Warden needs more!”

“No doubt, far too caught in their own schemes…”

“Agh! I cannot believe we were once their own!”

“WHERE IS THAT OUTLANDER ALREADY! I WANT VENGEANCE!”

“We all do”

“Four surviving rats have been skewered in total, and we are closing towards more; there are only so many caverns they can hide in”

“Yet we cannot find one supposed ‘conjuror of machinations’? If any of what you had claimed was true, then the life-field should be immense! Beyond potent! Easily seen and followed with the Warden’s gifted sight!”

“Outlanders’ life-fields are already distinguishable from mortals, yet we have found nothing to follow of this one!”

“It is as I said, something is playing with our sight and has been, preventing us from following the trails left by the life-field; not only now, but even before. And I am certain it is the Watcher, that perfidious meddler! That is why we could not find the last stranded puppy and that is why we cannot find this one!”

“Oh, this again… yet another self-instilled delusion! What are you? Still a mortal? The ‘Great’ Watcher watches! That lingering falsehood has never done anything before, why would it do something now?”

“You! You shut up, you violated amoeba! You have done not a single thing at all for the last—”

“Not even a single extra breath about the Watcher, is that clear? The Watcher does not exist, for our intentions and purposes.”

“…Greatest One, we—”

“Be quiet.”

“…”

“The Voice will be here soon, and no doubt will be disappointed to see that, even now, some of you still refuse to do any labor, despite our dwindled numbers… numbers which have dwindled more in the hunting of merely four out of the ten survivors. We are the instruments with which the Warden’s will is wielded, and nothing is more of a waste than tools that refuse to put in their value.”

“…”

“Must I have to remind each of you why the Gods had laid down their combined might to forge the Warden, and bestowed him with their most skilled of champions and servants? Must I have to remind each of you that we stand to lose…everything the Gods have strived to achieve, everything within this dominion forged by their touching light?”

“…”

“Yet…you all certainly seem to be not taking any of this seriously, despite your lust for vengeance. Strolling into caverns which these outlanders had turned into their own traps, losing more than we take from them. Must I have to say, once again, that for as much as we are the hunters, we can become the hunted?”

“Well spoken.”

“…the Voice!”

{System Administrator Assistant entry recognized, hibernation ended; welcome}

“The WARDEN! He speaks at last!”

“W-what did he say?!”

“That you all must labor harder to rectify this situation and correct your failures… along with a hello”

“Now, all present, gather and attend”

“We are at the Warden’s service, and will follow his Voice”

“What news does the Pantheon bring? Are we to be getting—”

“Let me speak.”

“…”

“None of you have not the faintest idea of the storm…that is happening in the Pantheon. That incident was too loud, far too loud, and not just for the mortals… And I am the one receiving the Gods’ blame and wrath”

“So, there is much to discuss, and there is much you must explain to me.”

{Alert: Proximity evaluation has detected an unrecognized presence: conducting further assessment…}

{Errorcode-x0000311855: Anomaly, extreme-threat, designated containment target: System quarantine likely breached, contacting Quarantine Intendent…}

{Quarantine Intendent is offline, contacting Superintendent…}

{System Superintendent is offline. Priority: immediate reset required, sending override initiation request to—}

« N-n-no! Do not do that! Do not do that! Let us handle this! »

{Acknowledged. Deferring to System Moderation.}

“What is happening? Did the Warden—”

“We are being watched…”

“What?! Intruders! ARE WE BLIND?! How?! All of you, find them, now!”

---

“…oh woopidy woop! ‘Nunc tempus discendi est’, as they say! Buzz buzz! NEEeeewoom!”

---

“…what was that?!”

“Certainly wasn’t the wind!”

“Was that a pixie?!”

“What is a PIXIE doing HERE?! FIND IT AND KILL IT NOW!”

“And an intruder, fantastic…”

« Kill it. »

{Acknowledged. Activating installation defenses.}

---

“Out of my way! Out of my way! OUT OF MY WAY VENT! COMING THROUGH! WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN SHOOTING AT ME?! AAAAAAAAHHHHH GET AWAY FROM ME!”

-||-

“Little pixie, we greet you… You do not seem…well”

“I…I am never doing that again! They had…pew-pew things on the ceilings and it was all…weird-looking and-and—who EVEN were those fuckers, anyway?! I’ve been around since that kid with the stupid smiley crown was still a thing and never saw divine servants like that!”

“Weep not, little pixie, you survived and that is all that matters”

“So, did you find anything?”

“Sniffle…sniffle… You only care about the information! I thought angels were supposed to be caring and nice and… well, you are sexy, but…come on! Personality is soo—”

“I will double the arrangement if you skip the theatrics and tell us now”

“SIC DOMINA!”

-|-

“Then this ‘Warden’ thingy began to speak his weird…I don’t even know, but his voice was kind of…meta and hot, though. But……anywayy, the weird bitch was all…like—she was HOT, and I mean clearly one of the Sky God’s bitches or something…like, her silky divine robes were just sooo…covering and exposing in all the great balanced ways! I… yeah, I just have a bit of a thing for babes dressed in divine oracle garbs, you know?………what was I talking about again? Oh right!”

“…”

“Little pixie, that is…enough… We understand the picture, and thank you”

“Kk! Coolio! Sooo…uhm…that means I can…”

“Yes, as by our arrangement, you may pluck two wing-feathers, but no more”

“Hehehe! YES!”

“Now…let mee see… Hmm…this one, PLUCK! Andd…this one, PLUCK!”

“…ouch”

“Ooh, these aren’t mistakable, nope nope, glittery and heavenly—these are gonna sell for…soooo many platinum florins in Nuevo Rejimo! Pure platinum, not the tainted shit either ‘cause these’re genuine angel feathers! Hehehehe… Trinitarian suckers”

“Anywayy…bye bye! Azios! See you again sexy angels haha! Buzz buzz!”

“…well, that was…an event…”

“Truly, that pixie seemed more like a mortal than a proper Terra Nova spirit… Are they all like that?”

“…not in majority, but certainly in plenty”

“Though, I suppose…now I see the value in all of this; that was…good knowledge, even if retrieved by a sinful…and…unpleasant fashion”

“As I said, little one, a Seeker must be willing to forgo her tolerances and mingle with any valid source for knowledge; we have Trinity’s blessing to commit sin if it means bringing back knowledges that assist in Heaven’s ultimate supremacy”

“So, we are to return and inform of our discoveries?”

“Hmm…not yet”

“…Arch Seeker?”

“ ‘Outlanders’, huh? What could that possibly mean? Are we not technically outlanders to these lands? Yet…they were obviously not referring to us…”

“It is obvious that the gods of these lands are hiding something and know far more than Trinity, but…why was an investigation suddenly ordained? And how did He already know…the location of this temple? Is He aware…too? Or…hmm…”

“Arch Seeker, are you…”

“No. I am not. Little one, you will come to realize that, as Seekers, we are required to be curious and to question, always, all in order to uncover the hidden secrets, mysteries, and knowledges beyond Heaven’s know; thus, all I am suggesting is that we must continue to seek and investigate further”

Gods scheme upon their rotting thrones, shackled to wills not their own, and those who hold their shackles fear shooting stars the most.