Morning Mist was old.
She had not thought about her age for the last 30 years. But she remembered seeing the fall of an Empire like it was a matter of yesterday, and that was some 100 years ago when she had been a youth. It also seemed that only yesterday she had failed her last mission.
Now she was Unworthy.
And in the Primordial Tower, all Unworthy were doomed to be thrown into the sea of madness.
I would have suffered the same fate as others, she thought, her hands tightening over her long overcoat. I should have suffered the same fate.
She looked outside the room, towards the disappearing sun below the distant horizon. The afternoon had come and gone, yet she had yet to move. When she thought of the reason for her stillness, she shuddered.
“Blood Demon,” she muttered and gulped heavily. “What in Chaos’ name are you?”
She couldn’t fathom his sheer existence.
In one moment, he seemed like any 2nd-floor Contestant. Greedy, ambitious, and always in search of more information. In the next, though, he was a shrewd old man, who could see into the very soul of his target and pry out secrets hidden deep. A killer beyond killers. An emotionless, cold, and raw machine.
She had seen the many victims of this supposed vengeance-seeking Team Rocket. Their eyes were so vacant and dead as if the thing that had made them humans had been sucked out of them. She had suspected Blood Demon, then. Though she didn’t know how he had been doing such things.
I must find out the power behind his confidence, she had thought.
And she did.
Morning Mist had orchestrated her hunt of three Order’s Contestants to test out his capabilities. Never had she thought that she would suffer so much because of that. When the despair had come, overtaking her entire being, it brought out the happiest memories which she had forgotten. Then, she had watched that happiness leaving her, abandoning her, being snatched away from her.
She trembled, remembering that feeling of helplessness as if she would never be happy again.
“What are you?” she asked again. “No wonder they are so interested in you.”
Suddenly, a bird fluttered into the room through the window. It looked like a hummingbird, with blue and white colors shining over it as the last ray of the sun hit it. When the bird landed over her shoulder, it brought its beak towards her ears.
What song it sang into Morning Mist’s head, none knew.
The blue-white hummingbird then fell lifeless on the floor. Only then one could tell it was a lifeless thing. Not of blood, flesh, and bones, but paper. For a moment, its bulging eyes had seemed to be full of life, but it could have also been an illusion.
If Kai had been here, seeing the bird’s erratic movements with his eyes, then he would have to admit that he had guessed Meg’s Ability wrong.
It wasn’t an Advance, but a Master Ability.
If he had seen a Master Ability before, then he could have guessed it correctly, she thought. Still, for him to have seen or even have an Advance Ability of his own…
She dared not think much about it lest her breathing got affected.
The sunset seemed to be some sort of signal, for one more bird came to her, again singing a song into her ears. There was no sound, only the mere knowledge that it was passing information. This bird followed another, and then another. They kept coming, one after another, like a flock.
When the hundredth bird had come, Morning Mist stood up and closed the window.
So he’s truly gone to Kurt, the Pokeball expert, she thought. How can he waste his time?
She looked around the room, then. It was a simple one. Just a bed in a corner, a table, a chair, a wardrobe, and an attached bathroom. On the wall opposite the bed was a TV, but it was off. On the floor was a red mattress with a blue-green floral design.
The clock struck six, and she knew it was now or never.
Her hands flicked, and she took out a fistful of something. Something squirmed within her grip, something almost alive. “Go,” she said, throwing the things in her hands into the room. “Search every corner and every hole for anything hidden.”
Even under the light of the room, one would have trouble believing about those things’ nature.
Beetles, mosquitoes, spiders, and ants. All were made of paper and the correct size. Within moments, these thousands of little white things covered the room’s insides like paint. Nothing could have hidden from them, and thus, nothing could hide from Morning Mist near her without her knowing about it.
The little paper insects soon returned to her, disappearing into her Inventory at her merest touch. When the last insect disappeared, singing no song, she took a breath of relief.
She undressed, becoming fully naked. Her breasts were sagging, and her entire body was wrinkly. But she was lean and straight, despite the obvious agedness of her body. She rolled the mattress over the floor and put it in one corner. Her hands again reached for something, taking out a small golden-brown box.
Her eyes trembled as she looked at it.
There was a symbol at the top of the box. An unnatural glyph. Its geometry was so distorted that it neither looked like a character nor any known shape. There was a strange sinisterness about it that made her look away from it. She opened the box and looked at the things within it.
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It was the oddest collection of things.
She remembered the origins of them all. It had taken her over 50 years to collect these things. Some things were given to her, and some she had taken by herself.
There were different colored empty Pokeballs from Pokemon World. A sling ring from the Marvel World. The tiniest Kyber Crystal from the Star Wars world. A tiny gun from the World of Men in Black. Two ninja scrolls from the Naruto World.
And one fruit with mysterious shapes over it. A Devil Fruit! From the One Piece World.
There were other things too, but of less importance. Morning Mist took a deep breath as she took her eyes off them. Her hand went into the box and she took out a long candle of the palest yellow color one could have ever seen.
She went to the middle of the room and placed the candle on her side. Her hand flicked again, and she took out a dagger. It shone blue as she cut her wrist in one quick slash. The blood streamed down, but before it could run, her other hand went for it, drawing a certain shape.
No one knew, and even she didn’t know, how she drew that shape. But when she was finished drawing it, it matched the strange glyph at the top of the chest. Her eyes blurred as she kept looking at it, everything going dark. So she broke eye contact. Then, she put the candle in the middle of this glyph and lit it.
A pale yellow flame flickered into existence. Under the effect of this flame, even the blood shone yellow. Morning Mist sat down on her knees and calmed herself down as she concentrated her gaze on the flame.
It was then she spoke.
“The Dweller in the Depths…”
With her first chant, foul darkness took over the light of the lamps within the room. Only the pale yellow flame seemed to be unaffected, now burning yellower.
“The Bringer of Madness and Doom…”
With her second chant, a wind howled around her. It rattled as if uncountable beings were breathing down her neck, just short of choking her, burying her head down into the flame, which had become larger and longer.
“The King in Yellow…”
With her third chant, all the colors became yellow. This was the color of past, present, and future, the color from beyond. This was Yellow. HIS color.
“HASTUR! I, Priestess Margrethe II of House Ingrid, sacrifice my blood and the Kyber Crystal, and request a cross-dimensional video call with the High Priest.”
Margrethe reached for the box and took out the Kyber Crystal, and placed it just below the candle. The yellow flame bulged as if something had just entered it, making the flame its abode. The Kyber Crystal lifted and entered the flame, disappearing eternally.
A video screen appeared above the flames then, seemingly made of the flames themselves. And an old voice crawled out from the other side.
“Ah, Margrethe!” the High Priest said, his voice shaking like the candle flame. “How is he?”
She knew the sacrifice wasn’t good enough for the video to even last for a minute. So she hurriedly told the High Priest the most important thing she had found out.
“He is blessed by a Dementor,” Morning Mist said. “He has an Advance Ability, and he is too strong for me.”
“A… blessing?” the High Priest muttered as if things didn’t seem as he had expected. “Are you sure?”
“I am,” she answered.
“Very well,” the High Priest said. “He knows about the Temple of Hastur. And he has already told someone about it. This Blood Demon is too wild. If we can not put rein over him, then we must kill him. You know you must.”
“But…” she hesitated and then steeled herself. “But I can’t take him on.”
“Humph!” the High Priest snorted. “Don’t forget why are you still alive? It’s HIS mercy. HE only took your Stats away, Margrethe, letting you live an ordinary life in the 1st Set. Now that your services are required, you must serve HIM. If you do this task, then I can think of letting you go back to the 13th floor. Think about it.”
“13th floor…” she blurted out, old memories coming out from older graves.
The High Priest grunted. “It’s time,” he said. “May HIS scalloped tatters hide Yhtill forever!”
“May HIS scalloped tatters hide Yhtill forever!” Margrethe echoed with the High Priest, bringing both her hands over her face like putting on a mask.
When she took off her hands, the flame had already died. The blood that was red before now looked yellow like pus. The darkness had receded, and the howling wind had gone. Margrethe cleaned the floor and put the box back into her Inventory. Still naked, she lay on the bed, thinking of the reward promised to her by the High Priest, and all the rewards that the Temple of Hastur had promised her once, but never given.
Time seemed to stretch as tiredness hung, clinging to her eyelashes. As the stars overtook all the sky, she fell asleep.
And when her breathing softened, a mass of spectral silver mist left the room unannounced.
AN: You must have many questions. So fire away them on Discord or here in comments. If they are not about some spoiler, then I would gladly explain them. Enjoy!