Deathwish, Part 6: Rebmauk

Part 1: Cinderfell
Part 2: Deal With a Vorpal
Part 3: Calmsquare Cantina
Part 4: The Wailing Chamber
Part 5: Grector Smash

Everyone stopped, as if they all knew they had arrived somewhere. Alicia looked around, not seeing much beyond a narrow cave entrance in the side of a hill. “Wait… is this it? I don’t think Grector can even fit through there!”

All three Vorpals stared at Alicia before she realized what she said. “Oh, right… shapeshifting. But I’ve never seen Grector change his shape. Can he…?”

Grector glowered at Alicia. “Of course I can shapeshift, human. I just don’t use it as nonchalantly as other Vorpals.” Grector turned skinny and stood up straight, now looking entirely different. He still had broad shoulders and a metal mask with glowing eyes behind it, but now he looked more like an actual humanoid instead of a top heavy stone golem.

Dapper led the way within the cave, followed by Alicia and the other two Vorpals. As she followed closely in the dimly lit and narrow cavern, they entered a larger chamber which had scattered lights everywhere. Despite this, the floor seemed entirely darkened, until Alicia realized what she was looking at.

There were all kinds of buildings and platforms, built directly into the ceiling. There were rope bridges with wooden planks connecting the various locations, all populated with Vorpals, but under them was still blackness. Alicia couldn’t see the bottom, and realized that the cavern might be bottomless for all she knew. An entire city, built underground and suspended over nothingness.

Alicia felt sick to her stomach at the thought. “Is… is this entire city just suspended over a massive pit?”

Oracle led the way down a bridge, followed closely by Grector and Dapper and less closely by a wary Alicia. She explained as she walked. “Rebmauk is one of the best hidden Vorpal cities, with caves that can be closed up by the inhabitants should any invaders be spotted nearby. Thus, unlike Calmsquare, it has a very large population of pacifist Vorpals. It also just so happens that there are many of our greatest thinkers here.”

Alicia still felt nauseous at the thought of the empty pit simply being there under her feet. “What’s at the bottom of the pit? And how far down does it go, exactly?”

Oracle thought for a moment. “I believe it’s nothing particularly interesting… either just a large amount of stalagmites, or a leviathan. As for how long of a fall… far enough that it would be lethal for most beings, unless you are a Vorpal with especially good shapeshifting control to figure out a way to cushion the landing.”

Alicia felt more sick. She needed to take her mind of the abyss, and found her distraction in an open building with marble pillars and a trio of Vorpals arguing within.

“No, no!” yelled a blue Vorpal, having an especially large head with skin drawn tightly over his bald head. “The fifth tier of consciousness is only the first step to true unity! You can’t pretend to have even the faintest idea of what I am talking about until you accept that irrefutable fact! We are merely progressing towards the inevitable coalescence of all sentience, and I’m not willing to wait for you simpletons to catch up!”

Another Vorpal, being a white skull on a table with no arms or legs and having only one eye socket containing a physical eye, responded. “Bah, your maniacal ramblings make me laugh! We are part of a tiered consciousness system, but you refuse to accept that!”

Alicia walked up, confused. “Are you both… claiming the same thing, but then believing the other one disagrees?”

The skull glanced at Alicia. “What nonsense! You think I’m understanding everything perfectly, yet I’m explaining very plainly that Physiom’s theories are rubbish! He keeps denying the tiered consciousness system!”

The blue Vorpal named Physiom ignored the skull, looking happy to have a different conversation partner. “Finally, an actually rational voice. I keep trying to explain to JayJay here, but he can’t understand anything. But are you here to listen to my theories, or are you just another troll to spout nonsense and criticize everything I say? Because I love to slay trolls…”

As Alicia stepped back, feeling very intimidated by Physiom’s sudden aggression, Dapper stepped up. “Killing, you say? I’m sorry, but if you so much as think of folding Alicia after I spent so much time and trouble bringing her here, I would be forced to tear out your brain stem, and make you skip rope with it.”

Physiom immediately cowered as the Vorpal known as JayJay transformed into a one-eyed snake and slithered away, aware he was no longer getting any attention. “You barbarians! I’m just sitting here letting my fountain of wisdom enlighten all of you, yet you feel the need to go out of your way to threaten me! Well, I won’t put up with fake foldin’ pretenders like all of you!”

The third Vorpal just watched for a moment, shaking his head in disappointment. “Such children… all full of superstition without relying on true facts. What is your name, child? I am Thoull.”

Alicia didn’t like the look of the final remaining Vorpal. He was pear shaped, but with the larger part at the top and having no skin, as if his entire mass was made up of exposed intestines. He had no eyes or mouth, but those kinds of details no longer drew Alicia’s attention as much as they used to. Despite her first impression of the slimy Vorpal, Alicia still introduced herself. “I’m Alicia. So, are you one of the Vorp- er, the great thinkers of Rebmauk?”

“Yes, I am. I have completely disprovenated all religions, especially the insipid four ways that those infernal casters follow and even the seven corners of enerealism.”

Alicia was amazed. She had not heard of the seven corners before, but The Four Ways were the set of beliefs that practically all civilizations she knew of followed. “Wow… that’s amazing! So, how did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Disprove The Four Ways?”

“...what do you mean? I just told you.”

“No, you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did!”

“Do you even know The Four Ways?”

“I don’t need to know, they’re rubbish!”

“Can you tell me how you know that, though?”

“They just are! Don’t be such a close-minded simpleton!”

Alicia was quiet for a moment before launching into a rant. “Harmony, Logic, Honor, Candor. You can’t even say The Four Ways, so you don’t even know that the intellectuals almost always follow the Way of Logic. They look to use objective reasoning to come to logical conclusions, and keep a mind not bound to any single theory or school of thought. If you don’t at least coincidentally follow this philosophy, how can you call yourself a great thinker? If you can’t describe a position, how can you claim you’ve debunked it? And if you don’t provide even your reasoning behind something, how can you claim you are right?”

Thoull laughed, first lightly but then hysterically, with great volume as his disgusting body contorted and pulsed. “You little fool! You follow the long discredited Way of Logic?! How very conformist of you. Your thoughts are so mundane and surface level, without diving into the deep end of consciousness! The real problem here is that the majority do not have a good method of thinking critically. A step-by-step process to efficiently arrive at what is known or unknown... The majority of the population equates to logical fallacy braided with cognitive bias to the point of borderline delusional if not completely delusional.”

Alicia was losing hope that any of what these so called great minds said would make any sense. “Your lengthy ramblings don’t mean anything! You are the one who is delusional!”

Thoull scoffed with disdain. “You are just as non-fact based as everyone else. Such a fool, blindly following such antiquated teachings.”

“But you haven’t provided any facts. You aren’t fact based either. I’m not the one who made a claim and failed to support it! You did!”

Thoull grew enraged, sizing her up like he was going to attack, ignoring her scarf entirely. Alicia crossed her arms as Dapper cracked his knuckles behind her, and instead Thoull just stormed off in a huff.

The hall was still filled with Vorpals, but they had all been sitting and standing around to listen to the conversation between the three now departed Vorpals. Dapper rubbed his chin, observing the exodus of the main attraction that they had inadvertently caused. “Hmm… I guess it’s all up to you now, Alicia.”

“Wait, what?”

“All the other intellectuals have left, but we still have an audience. I think everyone wants to hear what you have to say.”

Alicia was beginning to feel very self conscious, panicking under the attentive stares of Vorpals of all shapes and sizes. “B-b-but… what do I talk about?”

Dapper put his hands up in surrender. “I’m not the smart guy, here! Just talk about something you find thought provoking or profound, maybe even just notable. I’m sure they would love to hear it.”

Alicia thought for a moment. “Okay… I guess I’ll tell the story of how I met you, Dapper. Especially since you don’t remember it yourself.”

---

Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying the story, you might also enjoy my novel! It’s set in the same fictional universe, but follows different characters.

Same post on Minds

---