>HORRIFIC BETRAYAL
Hopefully that wards Gil off: not that he isn't your best friend and retainer and so on, but you don't want him here to see this. Richard said, if you wanted to be a really big lizard, you'd need to appease the Wyrm. How to appease the Wyrm? Kill somebody you like, the more blood the better. Probably, the more you like them, the better it works. You loved your father and forgot: sacrificing him lodged some Wyrm in you forever, but not enough. You could try again. Do it to Richard. Ha-ha.
«Good luck.»
No. You can't pretend he's your father, and you don't like him enough when he isn't. You mean, you don't— you don't know. It's so complicated. You get the impression the Wyrm doesn't like 'complicated'.
If you could do it to Horse Face, it wouldn't be complicated. You don't like him. But you saved him already. Lucky? Pat? Would Ellery do it willingly? It wouldn't count if he did it willingly. A betrayal. You could call Gil back and give him a hug and tell him he helped you so much with everything, then slip a knife through his ribs and hold him as he sags, and you could lap his blood, and— you mean, you couldn't. He's made of goo. And even if you were God and you squeezed him in your hand and gave him flesh and blood again, you couldn't do the rest.
You flash him a reassuring smile (fewer teeth) and wave him off vigorously, this time, so he actually backs away. Of course he wouldn't leave without you asking. Then you turn your back and pick through the rubble, back toward the remnants of the temple— though not before weaving around one of Ramsey's staggering legs. She hasn't moved yet. Because she's not sure how to? Because she can't think any longer? Or because she doesn't need to: there's no knocking the Crown off her head now?
It's a good thing Ramsey isn't very smart. You duck behind a chunk of wall and plunge your fingers into the sand. A few moments later, the head of your beloved worm pokes out before you. (You may have indicated that food was available.) Oh, Annie, so beautiful, so innocent: she's never done anything wrong in her life, except eating Lucky that one time. Never done anything wrong to you. And she harbors no complexities, no conspiracies, nothing to untangle or struggle to understand. She's just a worm. A worm you like a great deal.
"Sorry, pretty girl," you whisper, even though Annie doesn't understand speech or apologies. "I'm so sorry. I'll— when I'm God, I'll—"
She doesn't understand what gods are. Doesn't understand what betrayal is. She won't know fear or anger or recrimination— won't stare you in the eyes as you twist the knife. She has no eyes. She will know pain, pain, pain, pain, then nothing, then something again, if you revive her, and she will go on her wormy way untouched and untroubled.
(1/3?)
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>Worm protected <3
...You know what Richard is going to say, though. You shouldn't make decisions without getting all the facts first. Right? And maybe Annie has opinions about what she wants to be doing. You can't neglect that.
«Your worm is not intelligent enough to have opinions.»
Talk about jealousy! If Richard had projected his mind into a glorious worm, instead of a stupid ugly snake, none of this ever would've happened. Maybe he's mad that you resurrected Annie, who never did anything wrong in her life, while you plan to kill him stone-cold dead, because he did everything wrong in his life. You are henceforth ignoring him and devoting all attention to Annie.
"Poor baby. Poor girl." Does water heal the wounds of animals like it does people? Eloise or somebody would know. Maybe, later, you can pilfer a tarp and make her bandages. Or, better yet, you'll be God soon and make her better. So much better that nobody can ever hurt her again. For now, you wrap your arms around her and commune.
Though you're not admitting it to Richard, Annie has two main lines of thinking: whether or not she's hungry, and whether or not she's in pain. (There is something else involving male worms, but you're setting that aside.) Right now, Annie is not very hungry, and she is very much in pain. Her "memories" of the injury are, er, abstract, given that she's blind. And a worm. Probably uninterpretable. She is happy to see you, though! You are the thing that brings her food.
This isn't even true— you've taken her hunting once or twice, but not enough to build that reputation. It's just that her adorable worm brain has no other definition for "friend." That doesn't change the fact that Annie is your definitive best friend, Gil aside, and you want to do right by her. As useful as she'd be eating evildoers, she isn't very hungry, and she's in pain, so you won't make her. That's that.
Still, you can't help but feel she ought to be useful. She's a 20-foot man-eating worm, for God's sake. Could you enlist her in making tunnels to get people places? But you don't know where everybody's going— that's Madrigal's job. If only you could get people out of the Corcass entirely, but Ramsey's thought of that. She put up her evil barrier.
...Has anyone tested the barrier? Surely they've tested the barrier, or at least previous Game barriers. It can't be trivial to break it. But has anybody tried to tunnel underneath it? Or smash a worm into it? Ramsey isn't God: it's not trivial to break, but it can't be unbreakable.
That settles it. You stroke Annie's rubbery side and transmit worm-level instructions: tunnel forward until you hit something you can't move around or breach, and try to dig under. If you can't dig under, try to break through it. If you can't, turn around and find me. If someone tries to hurt you, eat them. Okay?
(1/lots)
...You know what Richard is going to say, though. You shouldn't make decisions without getting all the facts first. Right? And maybe Annie has opinions about what she wants to be doing. You can't neglect that.
«Your worm is not intelligent enough to have opinions.»
Talk about jealousy! If Richard had projected his mind into a glorious worm, instead of a stupid ugly snake, none of this ever would've happened. Maybe he's mad that you resurrected Annie, who never did anything wrong in her life, while you plan to kill him stone-cold dead, because he did everything wrong in his life. You are henceforth ignoring him and devoting all attention to Annie.
"Poor baby. Poor girl." Does water heal the wounds of animals like it does people? Eloise or somebody would know. Maybe, later, you can pilfer a tarp and make her bandages. Or, better yet, you'll be God soon and make her better. So much better that nobody can ever hurt her again. For now, you wrap your arms around her and commune.
Though you're not admitting it to Richard, Annie has two main lines of thinking: whether or not she's hungry, and whether or not she's in pain. (There is something else involving male worms, but you're setting that aside.) Right now, Annie is not very hungry, and she is very much in pain. Her "memories" of the injury are, er, abstract, given that she's blind. And a worm. Probably uninterpretable. She is happy to see you, though! You are the thing that brings her food.
This isn't even true— you've taken her hunting once or twice, but not enough to build that reputation. It's just that her adorable worm brain has no other definition for "friend." That doesn't change the fact that Annie is your definitive best friend, Gil aside, and you want to do right by her. As useful as she'd be eating evildoers, she isn't very hungry, and she's in pain, so you won't make her. That's that.
Still, you can't help but feel she ought to be useful. She's a 20-foot man-eating worm, for God's sake. Could you enlist her in making tunnels to get people places? But you don't know where everybody's going— that's Madrigal's job. If only you could get people out of the Corcass entirely, but Ramsey's thought of that. She put up her evil barrier.
...Has anyone tested the barrier? Surely they've tested the barrier, or at least previous Game barriers. It can't be trivial to break it. But has anybody tried to tunnel underneath it? Or smash a worm into it? Ramsey isn't God: it's not trivial to break, but it can't be unbreakable.
That settles it. You stroke Annie's rubbery side and transmit worm-level instructions: tunnel forward until you hit something you can't move around or breach, and try to dig under. If you can't dig under, try to break through it. If you can't, turn around and find me. If someone tries to hurt you, eat them. Okay?
(1/lots)