Chapter 29: Having Too Many Questions as a Rock?! (Patreon)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Having Too Many Questions as a Rock?!

Alice felt numb. Both her rock head and her rock heart pulsed furiously at the sheer magnitude of Favors One Task's unexpected visit. Time had held its breath while that creature yapped away like a baseball sportscaster, but no more than ten minutes could have passed. Ten short minutes, and Alice's entire world felt as though it had just sprung a leak.

She turned the meeting over in her head, chewing on the insanity of what was revealed with [Geological Memory]. Without even thinking, she brought up [Divine Development] and blinked stupidly at the smallest of changes.

Divine Development

Title: Alice of the Merry Weather

Rank: Lesser Divine

Caretaker: F̶͍́a̶̖͗v̷̻̚o̶̢͛r̷̛͙ș̷́ ̴̭̿O̸̺͐n̸̲̓e Task

"Her name..." Alice studied the now-partially glitched text. For some reason, the last word of that unusual title now read plain and simple.

And Alice's nonexistent eyes widened as she focused on the word Task. Within less than a heartbeat, the familiar quests appeared once more, taunting her with their impossibility.

Guidance: Your First Shrine!

Instruction: Establish a shrine in the Waterhold Abbey within (5) days.

Reward: Maybe you won't die >:D

She scrolled numbly through the increasingly absurd quests. Favors One Task would have Alice set up a shrine, would see her acquire a hundred followers. She even wanted Alice to feed Urd spicy food until she vomited!

"She's insane!" Alice practically barked out the curse, her eyes resting on [Spreading the Love!].

Guidance: Spreading the Love!

Instruction: Maintain (200) active curses in the town of Waterhold within (11) days.

Progress: 5/200

Reward: Maybe you won't die >:D

"Impossible..." Alice said, but her nonexistent eyes had already swiveled over to where Favors One Task's doll now lay unmoving. She thought of the creature's snide comment, and [Geological Memory] replayed the incident with Bram the Rabbit.

"Favors One Trick called it a trick," she muttered to herself. When Eber the Doorkeeper had found himself cursed, Alice had wondered if the objects she haunted could spread her malevolent gift. Favors One Task seemed to have answered that question. The realization did little to soothe Alice's worry, however.

Even their name is annoying to say! Alice fumed inwardly, her thoughts becoming silly. It was just too long! Forget Favors One Task! I'll just call them FOT!

"But who cares what I call her! Am I  supposed to run around Waterhold hugging everyone with their body?!" Alice shouted, all of her confusion bubbling over and erupting like a baking soda volcano.

Would she even be able to manipulate FOT's old body? Alice had struggled even to make a small stuffed animal do somersaults.

Alice's mind turned to the curses featured so prominently in her newfound guidance. She was not sure what prompted the curiosity, but Alice brought up her main stat screen and scrolled down until she arrived at several lines of familiar text.

Statuses

Curse of the Innocent: This object was used to cause a horrible tragedy. Certain death awaits all who embrace it.

Curse of the Dragon's Decay: For the crime of defiance, dragonkin are condemned to annihilation by The Fates. Those with dragonblood in their veins will endure constant suffering should they come into contact with this cursed blood.

She studied the two curses and felt her spirits deflate. She focused on the [Curse of the Dragon's Decay], realizing she had never actually studied it more closely before.

Curse of the Dragon's Decay

Severity: Feeble

# of Afflicted: 0

Time Until Maturity: 98 Days

At least it's feeble... Alice thought to herself as she studied the text. She didn't have to worry about the curse strengthening in ninety-eight days either. The predicted death was coming in eleven.

"And even if I wanted to pass it to someone, it's not like I have any blood," Alice reminded herself. Unlike [Curse of the Innocent], this curse could only be spread through that icky red wet Alice's new body lacked.

But hang on...

Acquired Blood: Human Banker (common)

[Geological Memory] summoned the memory at once... because she did have blood. Alice couldn't have said where it was hanging out, but she had sucked Bram dry.

"I don't want to spread the [Curse of the Dragon's Decay], but I wonder... is there some way to expel Bram's blood from my body?"

As if the thought alone was the key, Alice watched as a trickle of red wet oozed out from the cracks of her rock heart core.

She stared at the blood, her nonexistent breath stuck in her earthen throat. She had made a bad joke about getting blood from a stone before, but this...

"So [Bloodthirsty] lets me consume and spit out blood?" There seemed to be no other explanation for the red trickle now rolling down onto the cavern floor.

Her thought turned back to FOT's guidance, to the impossible task of spreading two hundred curses without killing half the town. If the [Curse of the Dragon's Decay] only affected dragonkin...

"Maybe I could just infect all of Waterhold with this bloodcurse!"

Her flash of excitement quickly petered away, however. Infecting the town seemed almost as absurd as running around and hugging everyone. Would she just have Kuonrat instruct the residents of Waterhold to line up and lick the rather demonic-looking rock as it squirted blood onto their faces?

"Forget eleven days, they'd tear my cultists apart within an hour!"

With a resigned sigh, she turned her attention back to her other curse, the same curse that had brought her to this wretched place to begin with. Her focus soon summoned another pop-up, which made all other thoughts drop out of her head like lead stones.

Curse of the Innocent

Severity: Powerful

# of Afflicted: 5

Time Until Maturity: 107,988 Days

"What is with that enormous number?!" Alice could hardly believe her nonexistent eyes. [Geological Memory] brought her back to those comfortable days at the pond. She had only needed another 270 days to see the curse mature then. What had happened since? Did spreading the curse make it take longer to mature or...?

"Why can't anything be simple?!" Alice fumed. She had not thought to stumble onto another mystery from a simple pop-up. It seemed like every other hour brought new questions into her life, FOT chief among them.

Because who was she? What was she? It seemed so obvious now, but the quest menus and their cheeky rewards made it clear that FOT could manipulate The System. Did that make her some kind... of system administrator? Some kind of rogue system administrator? What did that make The Voice then?

But Alice's confusion did not end there. Favors One Task had said They didn't want Alice to arrive here, but who was That?!

It was all too clear that FOT was Kuonrat's cheerleader, was Eva the Witch's best friend forever. If FOT supported a cult opposed to The Fates, that could only mean the people that had tried so hard to keep Alice from her reborn-as-a-demonic-rock lifestyle were The Fates themselves.

"Does that mean The Fates are system administrators, too?"

For the first time in her life, Alice regretted not reading more isekai slop. She knew the phrase system administrator, but at the same time had no idea what it meant. She could not remember reading a single story where a system administrator was anything more than an unimportant side character or a lazy plot device.

"And then there's the eagle!" Alice fumed, her rock head ready to burst. [Geological Memory] suddenly felt like a curse as she was not allowed to run from the truth that there might be other reincarnators in this world. "Forget might be. There are other reincarnators! FOT said the eagle was a one-truck job!"

Could nothing be simple?

Could Alice not go one hour without a new mystery falling into her lap?

Alice could not be sure if it was The Fates or Someone Else, but as her confusion and anxiety reached their zenith, the world decided to laugh in her face.

Because Bram's shriveled-up corpse had been left in the tunnel. He had been very much dead. Alice had even placed his soul into a doll. There could be no argument as to whether a pulse remained in his deflated body.

But he was moving now.

"Does this world have zombies?!" Alice shouted in wordless disbelief as she watched Bram's corpse shake and shiver in the tunnel.

She was about to slide back into Urd's skin and scream, but then she saw something that made her wish Bram had simply turned into a brain-chomping undead.

A hand broke through the rock wall of the tunnel like some kind of horrific dandelion. The deformed claw of some monstrous beast grabbed hold of Bram's legs and began to puuuuull him into the earth as if it were quicksand. Alice's [God Sense] allowed her to see into the densely packed soil, but the wall of earth was so dense that it was like looking out of a window into the soul of midnight.

As she focused on Bram's disappearance through the earth, however, she was able to make out bits of sharp claws, pulling and dragging Bram out of existence and into the layer of soil that surrounded the cavern.

"What is going on today?!" Alice shouted.

She might have devolved into hysterical laughter if Urd had not chosen that exact moment to pop back into her [God Sense], her bandaged face alight with joy as she slid down the ladder.

"Urd!" Alice shouted. She found herself momentarily paralyzed with confusion and concern. Bram's corpse had completely disappeared from the tunnel, though the child did not seem to have noticed. "Urd, there was... there was...!"

Alice forgot all about her divinity in that moment as she tried to translate her confusion into words.

"Bram's body!" she sputtered as Urd sprinted the last length of the tunnel and entered the cavern. "Something dragged him into... into the earth! His body! It just disappeared!"

Urd was not listening, however. The Girl's attention remained wholly anchored on FOT's body sprawled out in front of Alice the Rock.

Alice wanted to rip out her hair.

"Don't worry about that!" Alice said. She did not have time to explain FOT. "It's just... a doll! I made it myself. But the body! Bram's body!"

"Woooow," Urd said, pulling her eyes reluctantly away from FOT's humiliating pose. "It's so- "

"Yeah, yeah," Alice interrupted. She did not have time for this! "It's beautiful. Urd, Bram's body! Something dragged it into the ground!"

Alice wondered briefly if [Divine Communion] was broken. Despite everything Alice had said, Urd simply stared at Alice the Rock in confusion. There was not even the faintest hint of concern on her bandaged face over the disappearance of Bram's corpse.

"Oh." Urd blinked, her eyes widening, and she looked around at the cavern as though seeing its crumbly walls for the first time. "Oooo! This must be a ratman tunnel!"

Alice could have been knocked over by a feather.

"What?! Ratmen?!" Alice knew she had not misheard Urd, but still she could not believe [Geological Memory].

Urd nodded her head furtively, her expression still vaguely confused.

"The ratmen, they clean up all the... the smelly things in Waterhold," Urd said slowly, as if unsure this was a test. "They only have a small burrow here. L-Least that's what Momma said!"

Alice's thoughts ran wild with this newest knowledge. There were ratmen who cleaned up the town? Urd seemed to have already lost interest in the topic, however.

"Mister Eber said he would fix Roobit up," the child said happily. She turned to study FOT's body again. "Is this doll for you, God? She's very pretty!"

Alice opened her nonexistent mouth, but the weight of her confusion snapped it back shut. Alice had forgotten all about Bram the Rabbit. She had forgotten all about the possible eternal torment of his soul. That had been enough to worry about on its own, but now there were ratmen. There were rat-like creatures living under Waterhold who snatched up dead bodies.

That's so... so stupid!

But despite the rancor of her thoughts, Alice could not help but think of yesterday morning. It seemed like a cruel joke for so little time to have passed, but [Geological Memory] replayed Red Shirt's grisly death from the day before. His corpse had not been outside the dilapidated house upon Alice's return from the abbey. Alice hadn't given its absence any thought. Was it possible...?

Did ratmen come and take it away?

"You said the ratmen clean up... smelly things?" Alice asked, suddenly exhausted. "Like janitors?"

She would have very much liked to close her nonexistent eyes and forget all about FOT's visit, to forget Bram's corpse disappearing into the earth. But she couldn't. Not with an eleven-day death clock hanging over her head. 

Urd's blank expression told Alice she clearly had no idea what a janitor was, but the child did not let that stop her.

"It's their punishment," Urd said simply, her voice suddenly soft and distant. "I hadn't seen one b-before last night, but... but you're not supposed to see them. They're Fate-scorned... like me."

Alice frowned as Urd's answer tickled at her thoughts.

She saw one last night...?

[Geological Memory] replayed that awful evening. She watched the assembled cultists, heard them shout and shiver. But of the nine that had filled the cavern, one alone had remained oddly silent. Heavy robes covered them like the others, but studying them now in [Geological Memory]...

Was that a ratman?

Alice's curiosity, however, faded away as she studied the wounded look on Urd's face. The child had mentioned the ratmen were Fate-scorned like her. Alice had heard the phrase several times before now, how Red Shirt had said he would be doing the world a service by slicing open Urd's throat, how Dale's thugs had said Fate-scorned scum like Urd should be burned at the pyre.

The memories filled Alice with a sudden flash of anger, and her thoughts turned once more to the mysterious ratmen. Was it the same for them? Did Waterhold spit and sneer when they slunk past just like when they saw Urd's dragonrot?

Oh.

Oh, oh, oh!

A strange excitement filled Alice as a thought pushed its way past all of her gloom and exhaustion. She immediately reopened her curse screen and reread Urd's curse.

Curse of the Dragon's Decay: For the crime of defiance, dragonkin are condemned to annihilation by The Fates. Those with dragonblood in their veins will endure constant suffering should they come into contact with this cursed blood.

Urd had said the ratmen cleaned up the town as punishment. Alice thought to herself. Is it possible they're cursed just like Urd?!

And just like that, Alice knew what she needed to do. FOT had told her she needed to get out of the basement, but Alice was the god here. Perhaps it was time to go even lower than the basement.

Perhaps it was time Alice met the ratmen.

It is time to make servant-slaves of the ratmen, yes-yes!

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