The Great Core's Paradox

Chapter 278: Combined Efforts

I focused, pushing [Verdure Parasite] to its absolute limit, forcing plant-flesh to submit to my will. Again and again, bits of green and brown and blue and gold bloomed before me, forced into rapid and unnatural growth. And, again and again, the nearby Coreless collected the spoils of that growth.

Seeds.

It seemed that we would need a lot of them; far more than my disciples carried in their skin-mouths. I wasn’t entirely sure why. It had been hard enough to understand that they wanted me to force the plant-flesh to make more of the stuff in the first place, requiring an annoying amount of meaningless noises before they realized that they would have to act out what they wanted so that it would actually make sense - and, of course, that wasn’t particularly easy, either. It was only after I watched a few dozen attempts at getting their meaning across that I realized what they were requesting from me.

It was a good idea, now that we weren’t traveling around as much - and now that the Great Core’s light was spreading within the many-nest.

“...got another one filled,” a Coreless grunted, hefting an impressively large skin-mouth over his shoulder. It bulged with the weight of the seeds inside; the skin-mouth had been a particularly gluttonous example of its species, swallowing seed after seed until it seemed as if its stomach would explode from the strain. The Coreless strained to carry it in turn, the weight of the thousands of seeds of various types inside weighing him down. He huffed, one hand reaching up to wipe against his brow, and nodded to the other nearby Coreless before heading on his way.

For a moment, I tracked his passage through the grove of plant-flesh, but quickly dismissed him. I already knew where he was going; I could feel the lines of plant-flesh that the Coreless were in the process of planting, extending the reach of the original grove in the direction of the nearby tower-nests, where I could already feel connections to some of my [Little Guardian’s Totem]s flickering into existence.

A tentative hand reached out to me from the side, one of the Coreless briefly pausing in their efforts to feed seeds to their skin-mouth. It trembled slightly as it brushed against my head-scales. I allowed the touch, feeling the weight of the [awe] and [fervor] behind it, the emotions having hardly dimmed since Will’s words had first ignited them.

It was a wonder that they hadn’t simply charged to their deaths against the blasphemers. Maybe they would have attempted it, if my disciples hadn’t turned them away from that task. It was the right decision. Most of the Great Core’s newest Coreless would be all but useless in a fight; they wouldn’t be doing anything but throwing away their lives in the attempt.

That, I would not allow. Their lives were not their own, anymore. They belonged to the Great Core.

They would not be wasted by stupidity.

…I could tell that some of the Coreless were upset about that decision at first, many of them feeling a mix of [worry] and [rage] at the continued existence of the blasphemers, but they’d begun to calm a little over time. Oddly enough, it seemed to happen around the same time that the Coreless who had arrived with The Grateful One had spoken with them. Whatever he’d told them, it had been effective at calming a portion of their [worry].

He’d left soon afterwards, traveling towards the cavern’s center with an odd mix of [determination], [sadness], and [shame].A few of the ones he’d spoken to had gone with him, lacking the [shame], but feeling equally [determined].

Others, those who did not leave with him, went about quelling their [anger] in a different way, directing it towards improving themselves.

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Even from where I lay, forcing seed after seed to grow through [Verdure Parasite], I could hear the constant clatter of darkwood against darkwood and ore-flesh against flesh as the Coreless trained themselves. They did so with remarkable zeal; I even witnessed one particular Coreless apparently practicing the ability to tangle striking ore-flesh within the palm of his hand, catching it with a bright flicker of [pain] that was wiped away by the Great Core’s mercy soon after the ore-flesh was released again.

Though, I later realized that he’d probably just tried to grab at the much less dangerous piece of darkwood the ore-flesh was attached to and simply missed.

Still, it was a surprisingly effective maneuver; at the very least, it caught the Coreless he was training against by surprise, leading to his sudden defeat. After that, I noticed that he continued to try for the same grab, though he continued to only achieve middling success in catching the part of his enemy’s attack that he was going for.

It didn’t help that blood began to coat his enemy’s rod of ore-flesh-tipped darkwood, making the grab increasingly difficult.

Yet, despite it all, the Coreless persevered. Again and again, he spilled blood in the name of improvement, ignoring the [pain] that flared up with each new failure.

I admired that sort of dedication.

Even better, that particular Coreless wasn’t unique. It seemed that the newest of the Great Core’s followers were destined to become something special; the [fervor] that my disciple’s words had incited in them made them almost eager to bring themselves [pain] in the name of self-improvement, as if the physical [pain] would wipe away the mental [anguish] that still remained within them.

“...crazy bastards,” a Coreless beside me said, staring at yet another Coreless who had chosen to emulate the first’s bout of recklessness and received a heavy gash in return. The training only stopped for the briefest of moments; just long enough for the injured Coreless to shout and hold the wound up high, revealing to the others that it was already gone.

The other Coreless shouted back, filling the air with a great roar, and then returned to their training - only to do the same again the next time one became injured.

For some reason, each new wound - and its subsequent healing - only seemed to ignite their [fervor] further.

They hit harder.

They moved faster.

They roared louder.

They grew, pushing themselves to their limits and beyond them, bloodying themselves upon their allies’ fangs with admirable zeal - only stopping short of wounds that the nearby [Little Guardian’s Focus]es would be unable to fix.

“...crazy, true,” one of the nearby Coreless said back to the first, a mixture of [bemusement] and [yearning] radiating from his [Little Guardian’s Totem]. “Still, if these old bones of mine weren’t so damn creaky, I’d be doing the same thing.”

The first Coreless barked out a sharp laugh, reaching down to shovel more seeds into the hungering skin-mouth that he carried. “Ha! Go right ahead. I’ll stick here and gather my seeds. Not all of us are built for fighting, and that’s just the way it is. Me, I’m not afraid to admit that I get a bit faint at the sight of blood. Always have. Not proud of it, but it is what it is.” His skin-mouth sated at last, stomach filled and bulging with seeds, the Coreless hefted it over his shoulder with a grunt of exertion. “Anyways, those bones of yours won’t stop you from doing your part, whatever you decide - whether that’s fighting with them or gathering seeds with me. Seems Orken’s Little Guardian is changing all that ‘round here. And who knows? In a few days, maybe those bones won’t be so creaky anymore.”

The Coreless trudged off, leaving his companion frozen in thought. The elderly Coreless had frozen in place, letting the half-empty skin-mouth of his fall to the ground. It vomited out a portion of what it had swallowed, seeming rather inept at keeping the morsels that it captured contained within its flesh.

Which was probably why the Coreless went to the trouble of breeding so many of the strange things in the first place. They wouldn’t be nearly so useful if it was difficult to retrieve whatever had been fed to it.

I imagined that it meant a frustrating life for the simple creatures - everything that they gained was eventually taken away. Hopefully the Coreless’ treatment of the skin-mouths never came back to bite them; I knew that, if I were in the strange things’ position, I certainly would. Surely, they could only take so much.

Still, the skin-mouths’ eventual revolt wouldn’t be too bad. I’d never seen one actually capable of swallowing a Coreless whole - not to mention, the odd creatures seemed entirely incapable of moving on their own.

Incapable of doing anything but consuming, really - and not even very well, at that.

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And yet, through their continued service to the Coreless, they’d come to serve the Great Core in turn. I doubted that they really understood that fact, glorious as it was. The skin-mouth’s design was one of the worst I’d ever seen; no room for thought when everything had been hollowed out to create an ever-larger stomach.

Footsteps, legs brushing past plant-flesh, broke me from my thoughts. Another Coreless, this one an older female, arrived with another skin-mouth slung across her back. She paused when she saw the male Coreless, still frozen in place, and coughed. “You alright there, Renik?”

“Ah!” He jumped, [startled]. “Fine, fine. Just lost in thought,” he said, returning his attention to the hungering skin-mouth at his side. Yet, oddly, he no longer seemed quite so eager to feed it. Instead, his attention continued to drift back towards the Coreless fighting in the distance. One of his hands reached towards the [Little Guardian’s Totem] dangling from his neck, pulling it out from underneath the skin-flesh that the Coreless covered themselves in, and he stared at it intently.

“...I guess these old bones aren’t quite done yet,” he muttered under his breath.

“I want to see it - and, if you prove what you say is true, and my people can receive its benefits as well, then I’ll do everything that I can to assist you.”

Ewan let his hand drop underneath the collar of his shirt, grasping the spot of warmth that pressed against his chest. A simple necklace, carved from darkwood and strung with the sinew of a long-dead monster. It had been sculpted by a child, he was told. Ewan didn’t doubt it; as…spirited as the attempt surely was, he could see the crudeness in its shape. A good effort, but little more than that. It wasn’t something that would normally sell for more than a pittance; just an interesting little bauble to be bought and then forgotten about the next day.

Or it should have been.

One touch, a scaled snout pressed against wood, had been all it took to turn the carving of a child into an artifact of power. One that, even at that very moment, was sending warmth and healing through his body. He had never felt so healthy; he hadn’t believed it even possible to feel so hale. It was as if aches and pains that he hadn’t even known existed had been washed away by the little carving’s cleansing touch, leaving him feeling lighter than ever before. A little stronger, too, though Ewan wasn’t sure if he was just imagining that part.

He hoped it was true. Ewan would sorely need that strength for the conversations to come. It wasn’t easy to turn against everything he knew, even when it was for their own good.

For most of their own goods, anyway.

Father, he groaned to himself, not for the first time. Why did you have to get involved in this?

And, just like the last time he’d asked himself that question, Ewan already knew the answer. He needed little more than to look at the way he’d grown up - at the constant wealth that he was surrounded by, far more than anyone truly needed - to understand. There was a reason that his father had become Chief Treasurer of the wealthiest place in Erandur.

His father was brilliant when it came to matters of money. It was rumored that he could just look at a ledger and discern the meaning within, immediately noting any discrepancies or inefficiencies. Much of the White Towers’ affluence could be attributed to his efforts.

Socially, he was far less brilliant. Ewan had thought that it had been limited to needlessly cruel comments and biting remarks. Apparently, the man that raised him had likely been doing far worse. Ewan had trouble believing that his home’s Chief Treasurer had no part in the immoral way that much of its wealth was being gathered.

Still, Ewan felt that he at least needed to confirm that it was true before he set himself to the task of utterly ruining him. He wasn’t the greatest of fathers - not even a particularly good one, sometimes - but Ewan thought that he at least deserved that.

And, if he was guilty of what Ewan thought he was, he would deserve the consequences that came with that, too.

He swallowed hard, an odd lump in his throat, and jumped a little when someone spoke up beside him.

“Nervous?”

Ewan turned to see a rather unfamiliar face, its sharp features softened by concern - though Ewan wasn’t so naive as to think that it was concern for him. It was more likely that the man - Kel, he’d said his name was - didn’t want Ewan to back out of what he was supposed to be doing.

Kel was an old and serious-looking man who made his home in the rickety tower that had found its way into an alliance with Elara and her people. He was bulkier than Ewan would have expected from someone who grew up in the outskirts of Erandur. Ewan suspected that it was because the man hadn’t grown up at the fringes at all. One didn’t grow muscles like that in the shadow of poverty and disease. The scars were a bit telling as well; lines old enough to have long faded from the angry red they must have been, and overwhelmingly numerous.

He had clearly been some sort of fighter, once upon a time. Ewan didn’t ask what he’d fought. He hoped it was monsters, but he couldn’t be sure. Realizing that he’d been silently staring, Ewan finally forced himself to respond.

“Nervous? Of course not,” he replied with less confidence than he’d have liked.

“Don’t lie to me, boy,” the man scoffed, motioning with a hand towards the others that had traveled back to Ewan’s home alongside him. There were four of them, two men and two women. Ewan couldn’t quite remember all of their names; he’d only just met them and the nerves that he admittedly was dealing with were making it rather hard to think. “Not a one of us is feeling cool-headed right now. If’n you weren’t dealing with a bit of nerves, I’d be worried that you weren’t taking this seriously enough.”

“He’s right, dearie. But, like my Matthew used to say, it’s time to put one foot in front of the other and get to work,” the eldest of the women crooned, a woman so ancient that Ewan was a little convinced that only the power of the [Little Guardian’s Totem] hanging from her neck was keeping her alive at all. She was one of the few survivors of the now-burned tower, and had been particularly insistent on joining them. The woman had even stuck a blade underneath her skirts before they’d left. Ewan was going to have to be careful about that.

There was a lot of rage hidden behind that grandmotherly demeanor, and it might send the wrong message if she suddenly attacked someone.

Corinne, Ewan remembered her name, the distraction of the conversation having distracted him enough that he was finally able to think. Her adult grandson had either died in the flames or been captured for the mines. Nobody was sure which. Some of the bodies were too burned to identify.

“...let’s go over the plan again,” Ewan decided on saying, his need to go over the plan that had been discussed multiple times already a tacit admission of his earlier lie. Especially when it wasn’t a particularly complicated plan to begin with.

It all hinged on one idea; most of the people that lived in the White Towers weren’t evil. Just ignorant. They didn’t know the crimes that were being committed in their name. If they did, Ewan was sure that they would be horrified.

And so they would learn. Ewan would make sure of it.

But first, he needed to find out if his own father had a hand in the way things turned out. He hoped that he hadn’t. He feared that he had.

And if that fear turned out to be true, Ewan wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to stop Corinne from going for that knife.

Skies, give me the strength to continue, Erik thought. One hand absentmindedly sought out the familiar warmth of his [Little Guardian’s Totem] for comfort while, belying his frustrated thoughts, his lips twitched into a polite smile. If it weren’t for the constant healing given by the necklace around which his fingers were tightened, the expression probably would have hurt, given how often he’d been forced to use it recently.

“I assure you,” he said, “all that I have claimed is true.”

“Forgive me, but you claim that a respected tower of Erandur has turned upon another,” the man in front of him replied, frowning in skepticism. “Not only that, but in such an egregious manner. Surely you must see why there would be room for doubt?”

Erik could see it. He could also see that there was a Skies-damned tower burned to a husk - and he knew that, if this man would just get off his ass and go look, he would see the same thing himself. It was enough to -

Erik paused, taking in a heavy breath.

One. Two. Three.

He let it out, and let some of the building frustration go with it.

“Of course, I understand,” Erik replied, trying to keep his voice even and composed. “But the proof is there for anyone willing to see it. The tower was attacked, and many of its people were taken or killed. We have survivors who can testify to what happened, including elders and children.”

The man before him, in a baffling display of obstinance, continued to disagree. “That sort of testimony can be unreliable, especially in the wake of something so traumatic. How do we know these survivors aren’t exaggerating or mistaken? Neither the elderly nor the young are particularly known for their dependability when it comes to things like this. The memory goes with age, and children can be particularly imaginative.”

Erik clenched his jaw, fingers digging into the warm wood of his [Little Guardian’s Totem] for another brief moment - a replacement for the sudden urge to throttle the man and throw him across his well-appointed room. It was the nicest room he’d seen all day. Not surprising. Everyone had told him that Erandur’s towers tended to become nicer the farther towards its center one moved.

But nobody told him that the people became so annoying.

He was finding that he much preferred speaking with the leaders of the towers in the outer ring. They were much easier to talk to. More down-to-earth. In fact, some of them had only taken a bare few minutes to convince of what had occurred. Once Erik explained the advantages that came with an alliance - among them, the powers that the Little Guardian offered - they all but fell over themselves in their haste to agree.

Perhaps it was because the outer towers were already familiar with the way things worked. They’d witnessed the lack of care that the insulated, more central parts of the City of One Hundred Towers had for those at its outskirts - for those who bore the brunt of most monster attacks.

To them, the raid on one of their own was simply yet another way those at Erandur’s center took advantage of those at its edges.

Erik was relieved that he hadn’t had to spout out another speech. He wasn’t sure that he had another one in him. The first had been hard enough, and he was still a little embarrassed to think about it.

Now, he’d discovered something far worse than giving an impromptu speech in front of a crowd.

A stubborn idiot.

It took far longer than Erik would have liked to press the man into a tentative alliance - which ended up being more of an agreement to not interfere than anything else. With so many different towers to visit, he didn’t have time to convince him of anything more, and he certainly wasn’t planning on offering him free access to the [Little Guardian’s Totem]s after such a horrible reception. Likely, that noninterference agreement would transform into something more as soon as the man witnessed the effects of the Little Guardian’s powers on the towers that weren’t led by an idiot.

As Erik exited the tower, he cooled his simmering frustration by imagining that future conversation. It would be cathartic to watch the man beg. Hopefully, he would have a better reception at the next tower he visited.

Only some sixty-odd more towers to go, he sighed to himself, never more thankful for being part of a team than he was in that moment. At least he wasn’t alone in this. The others were out doing the same, and more than a few inhabitants of Erandur had volunteered to help as well.

Little by little, it would get done - and, in only a few days, the city would undergo a transformation.