Chapter 30: Becoming a Mother… as a Rock?! (Patreon)

Chapter Thirty

Becoming a Mother… as a Rock?!

Alice could practically feel the bumpy knots of her rock heart pulse with newfound purpose. 

"Urd, where do the ratmen live?" she asked her pint-sized priestess.

The Girl had been cautiously inspecting FOT's body and jumped at Alice's sudden question. She looked warily around at the cavern walls as if half expecting a ratman to crawl through the misshapen rock.

"They live... underneath Waterhold?" Urd said, unsure. She blinked away her confusion and knelt reverently before Alice the Rock. "Momma said they live in a burrow."

Alice supposed if the ratmen cleaned up Waterhold, they would have tunnels zigzagging all over the town. A burrow, though...

"Did the Master wish to keep the bad man's corpse?" Urd asked, her brow furrowed. Alice was not altogether sure she had heard Urd correctly. The child was looking around the cavern once more as if looking for the softest soil to dive into, so she could drag Bram's decay back.

"Did I want...?" Alice almost felt offended by the question. "No, of course not! I just... I just want to speak with the ratmen."

Urd's eyes snapped back onto Alice the Rock, and she blinked in muted confusion. 

"God wishes to... to speak with the ratmen?" the child repeated, as though she were unsure she was the one who had heard correctly. "Why would You...?"

But a white horror crept over Urd's face, and her full thought was left unspoken.

She bowed low, shaking her head as if to rid it of a foul thought.

"I-I'm sorry, Master Merry Weather, but I don’t...! I don't know where the burrows are!"

Alice frowned was not altogether sure what had sparked Urd's latest flash of fear, but she turned her thoughts back to the Ratmen Mystery.

[Geological Memory] summoned Bram's corpse before her nonexistent eyes. Like an old cassette found in a bargain bin, Alice fast-forwarded through the several minutes of memories until Bram's shriveled remains began to disappear into the rocky soil.

Gotcha, Alice thought victoriously to herself. She felt almost like a detective as she found the ratman's clawed hand wrapped around Bram's left foot. It was easy then to slowly look backwards through time with [Geological Memory], tracing the slight movements of the earth that had simply gone unnoticed before now.

It felt like a game as she stalked the ratman as he moved through the soil and stone. It was uncanny how easily the creature moved through the dense wall of earth, crawling as effortlessly through dirt as a fish would through water.

He must have some kind of skill that lets him move like that, Alice thought to herself as she watched the ratman slide in and out of [God Sense]'s enhanced range. Every so often she would lose track of the creature as he went beyond her Divine Sight. She would scrunch up her nonexistent face then, studying the dense wall of black for the faintest shift, the smallest vibration, and that was where she would find her prey.

She continued to rewind [Geological Memory] until... until she saw Kuonrat on his hands and knees, trembling. He had just opened the cavern door and revealed Alice the Rock's new form to her pint-sized priestess.

And there was the ratman, watching from within the stone overhead.

Oh...

Alice felt a faint chill as she realized the ratman had been watching her the entire time. While she had hugged Urd with Roobit the Rabbit. When Urd had slurped up her soup with messy delight. There was the ratman, always invisible amongst the earth.

And if he was watching then...

For thirteen years, Alice had used [God Sense] like a CCTV camera. She had watched rabbits and squirrels hop over her rock body beside the pond. She had watched the sun rise and fall, as rain and snow cleaned and buried her rock body. She had lived in sunlight and shadows, never once looking beneath the soil, never once allowing her thoughts to stray to the wall of curtain black that lay beneath her.

But as she rewound and fast-forwarded [Geological Memory], stalking the ratman through the earth, it was as if a third dimension was added to her sight. All these years, she had never once thought to study the worms crawling through the dirt. She had never even considered it possible!

But [God Sense] was not so weak an ability as to hide half the world from her. Just as the description said...

Active Skills

God Sense (Rank X): You need not see nor hear with the feeble eye or ear. The world and all its secrets reveal themselves to you without restraint or restriction.

...the world and all its secrets would reveal themselves to her. And she saw the ratman now.

"You nasty little peeper!" Alice pulled on the creature's ear with a [Malevolent Whisper]. He was buried within the soil no more than ten feet away from where Urd stood.

Her face burned with humiliation as the ratman let out a soundless squeak, the noise swallowed by the dense earth. The creature began to scurry hurriedly away, pushing aside the dirt that buried it as easily as if it were freshly fallen snow.

Not so fast!

Before the ratman could escape her vision, Alice planted a [Serpent's Desire] in its malformed head.

"Stop! Don't move!"

The ratman's squeaks and shivers halted at the very edge of her [God Sense]. The creature was so thoroughly surrounded by soil that Alice could not fully understand its appearance, but that was easy enough to fix.

"Come here!" Alice planted another [Serpent's Desire] in its head. "Present yourself to Master Alice of the Merry Weather!"

The fear the creature felt was put on full display as it struggled between flight and obedience. It made small circles through the dirt, drawing ever closer to the cavern before fleeing deeper back into the curtain of soil.

Alice could not help but feel a little bad for shouting at the poor thing as it continued its miserable dance. It was clearly terrified.

"Please, come into the cavern," Alice whispered with [Malevolent Whispers], though she was not even sure it could understand her. "I'm not angry. I just... want to speak."

The ratman went very still. She was about to tickle its thoughts with another [Serpent's Whisper], but then the soil around its body shifted, and the creature made a direct line for the cavern Alice the Rock now dwelt in.

"Wh-what is...?!"

Urd let out a strangled shout as the earth crumbled around the cavern floor. A small cloud of dust rose and fell to reveal... the most wretched creature Alice had ever seen.

The ratman looked more like a manrat. At first glance, it looked like a supremely hideous human with pale, bloodless skin. On its head was the faintest flutter of hair, wispy and white. The more one looked, however, the more hideous the creature became. Its human-like skull was warped and elongated towards its snout-like mouth. Misshapen teeth pushed their way past lips that slathered endlessly. In place of a beard, a very fine whiskery mustache covered its lip.

The ratman shielded its eyes from the glow of torchlight, revealing hideous clawed hands.

Urd took a step away from the ratman, her expression suggesting she did not know whether to scream or throw up.

"Urd?" Alice tried to grab the child's attention, but she continued to stare with open revulsion at the chittering ratman. "Urd!"

"Y-Yes, Master!" Urd jumped, as did the ratman.

"Urd, I need you to tell our... our guest that..." Alice struggled with what to say. She had expected the ratman to look a little more like a rat. "Thank him for taking that traitor's corpse away."

Urd needed a moment to compose herself before she could turn and speak to the ratman. Alice wondered idly if it would even understand Urd.

As Master Merry Weather's thanks filled the cavern, the creature began to shiver as if in distress. The ratman shielded its twisted face, chittering nervously.

"No-no!" the creature said in a raspy, slavish voice. Alice's eyes widened in astonishment as its wholly human words filled the cavern. "Such... Such kind-word-thanks unworthy of Dirt!"

Alice was filled with a sudden pang of pity as the creature continued to tremble. She could not help but wonder if this was the result of a curse like Urd's, if its misery was a mere reflection of the bloody scales Urd once carried.

Without another thought, Alice willed that the ratman was healthier. She wished that he would not be tormented by pain, just as Urd had been before she picked up Alice the Rock.

The ratman went very still as [Bless] seemed to activate, but his silence did not last for long. The creature filled the cavern with a chittering not unlike the skitter-scatter of a hundred cockroaches. Alice could not be sure if it was a happy noise, but then the ratman threw himself face-first into the ground, eliciting a frightened yelp from Urd.

"Not only does God-Master Merry Weather speak-talk to lowly Dirt...!" The ratman's entire body trembled as it clasped its clawed hands together in prayer. "She make-makes Dirt's pain-ache go away!"

Alice realized with another pang of pity that the creature's name must have been Dirt.

"How can small-lowly Dirt ever thank-repay the God-Master's kindness?!"

Despite the creature's misery, Alice could not help but smile. The ratman certainly had an odd way of speaking, and he was definitely lacking in self-confidence, but Alice could not help but like Dirt. Just like with Urd, Alice almost found comfort in how... pathetic the ratman was.

Which probably means I'm a terrible person, Alice thought to herself, but she pushed the nagging thought aside. Urd continued to study the ratman with barely restrained revulsion.

"Urd, tell him that I don't need... repayment," Alice said, and her pint-sized priestess was quick to convey the Divine Decree. "I would like to meet the other ratmen, though."

Dirt went very still as Urd finished sharing Alice's wish. His whisker mustache twitched as if some great undertaking was going on in his elongated head.

"Yes-yes," Dirt said after a brief moment. He nodded excitedly as something barely reminiscent of a smile spread across his mutated face. "Dirt understands! Dirt will bring family-brood to God-Master!"

And without another word, the ratman spun around and dove back into the earth, pushing aside the packed soil as easily as one would a pile of leaves.

Definitely has to be a skill, Alice said at once. She could not help but wonder what it would feel like if Alice the Rock learned it somehow. Would her stone sapling of a body be able to zip through the ground like Dirt?

"Woow..."

Alice snapped free from her silliness as Urd continued to stare at the disturbed earth where the ratman had once stood.

"So that's what the ratmen look like..." The Girl muttered to herself. "They're kind of... kind of c-cute."

Alice blinked in disbelief. Cute? Had her pint-sized priestess just called that walking horror cute?

And didn't she say my new body was pretty, as well? Alice thought to herself, replaying the compliment with [Geological Memory]. I'm starting to wonder if Urd has a very messed up sense of taste...

It wasn't long before [God Sense] revealed several tremors moving through the packed soil. Now that she knew what to look for, it was just as easy as watching Urd scratch her nose. She could see one... two... three...

More and more disturbances appeared within her [God Sense] until POP, POP, POP, several holes appeared in the cavern as a gaggle of ratmen crawled out of the earth. Alice's nonexistent eyes focused on the most familiar face among them.

"Dirt bring-drag family to the God-Master, yes-yes!" Dirt said, the ratman bowing very low.

Behind him was the most miserable-looking family Alice had ever seen. It made her own look picture-perfect by comparison. Dirt was decidedly the largest and most humanlike among them. The other ratmen had far more fur, which went a long way to hide some of the horror of their warped human-like bodies.

Alice realized two of the five were ratwomen with small budding breasts. The two shielded their beady black eyes with sharp claws. One of the ratwomen held what was possibly the ugliest baby Alice had ever seen. She could not even be sure it was a baby or simply the family's pet rat. Of all the collected creatures, it was the most bestial, covered almost entirely in fur, its pointed mouth a constant source of petulant whines.

It was this ratwoman and her ratbaby that Dirt stalked towards, having risen in a nervous shamble from his prayer. The ratwoman seemed to cower nervously at his approach.

The same chittering as before filled the cavern as Dirt stretched out his claws towards the ratwoman. Alice had no idea what he wanted at first, but then the ratwoman handed him the howling ratbaby, the ratwoman's face a mask of fear and misery. Dirt snapped his ratlike teeth at her as she refused to let go of the squealing bundle.

Alice was about to scold him when Dirt yanked the child away and turned back towards Alice the Rock, his mutated face triumphant. Behind him, the other ratmen continued to tremble and chitter noisily. 

"This one is unworthy to even sniff-smell your dust, yes-yes, but God-Master made Dirt's pain-ache go away," Dirt said, his horrible face turned down towards the ground in reverence. "This Dirt's family-brood are yours, yes-yes!"

For one brief moment, Alice had no idea what to say. She had not quite expected the ratmen to be so... wretched, but wasn't that the entire reason she had decided to seek them out?

"T-Tell them... Urd, tell Dirt he has a... beautiful family," Alice began, and Urd quickly repeated her lie. Dirt's beady eyes snatched onto Urd with an almost malignant fear. "Tell them that Master Merry Weather accepts them all into Her flock."

The trembling ratmen all looked so wretched, and Alice had certainly not forgotten Dirt's comment about his aches. One by one, she offered each of Dirt's brood a [Bless], willing their misery softened, that they find release from their hurts.

The collected ratmen chittered and squeaked much like Dirt had and then buried their heads beneath the earth, their clawed hands clasped bizarrely over the buried bumps as fresh faith coursed through Alice the Rock.

An unbeliever has been converted.

Received experience!

Received faith!

An unbeliever has been converted.

Received experience!

Received faith!

Five notifications flashed across her vision, leaving Alice lightheaded and her thoughts suddenly silly. Because the ratmen were particularly ugly, weren't they? She wondered what others would think if they saw her beauty pageant of a flock.

Her thoughts sobered faintly, however, as an unfamiliar notification flashed across her vision.

Divine Trait unlocked: Welcomes the Lowly

"Th-that's more like it!" Alice cheered, earning a surprised jump from Urd. That was the kind of trait Alice deserved. Never mind that silly [Tormentor of Souls] business. Alice was a kind god!

The ratbaby's squeals tickled Alice's thoughts once more. Urd had called the ratmen cute before, and Alice supposed if she squinted hard enough...

"Urd, ask Dirt if that is his... his baby?" It seemed like a stupid question to ask, but the creature looked so much like a rat that Alice couldn't be sure it wasn't just a household pet. 

Dirt nodded his head eagerly when Urd had finished speaking.

"Yes-yes! This newest brood-child. But Dirt... Dirt give to you, God-Master!"

"Eh?" Alice felt her faith-addled thoughts tickle with unspoken laughter. Being a god was one thing, but she was not about to become this ratbaby's mother. 

"An offering!" Dirt said, holding the squealing ratchild high over his head.

Dirt's comment felt like a joke at first, but then several old stories fluttered through her thoughts. Because wasn't it a common trope for families to hand over their children to a church or temple? Weren't there even some cultivation stories about sects adopting, and even kidnapping, children?

"Urd, tell him that is not necessary," Alice said at once. The thought of having to take care of a squealing rat infant was not in her plans for divinity.

Dirt visibly deflated when he heard Urd's refusal. Fear tickled his eyes as Dirt looked back at his trembling family, their heads still buried in the ground.

"D-Dirt's... Dirt's child-offspring not good enough...?"

Alice bit her nonexistent lip as Dirt's dour words picked at her heartstrings. She did not particularly want to accept the ratbaby as some kind of... priestboy, but she could not help but remember her most recent [Divine Trait].

Divine Trait unlocked: Welcomes the Lowly

I guess it would be kind of shallow to just want Urd hanging around me and not one of these ratmen, Alice thought to herself glumly. If she was going to be a god who welcomed the lowly, she should probably have a couple more freaks beside her vessel.

And maybe Urd would enjoy the company. Didn't she say the ratmen looked cute? 

With a resigned sigh, she turned her attention back onto the deflated Dirt.

"Urd, tell him that I will accept his child," Alice said, and Dirt's joy was radiant as a loud chittering filled the cavern.

Dirt brought the squealing ratchild towards Alice the Rock.

It really is ugly... Alice could not help but groan inwardly as she realized just how repulsive her newest priest was. Maybe if I [Bless] him enough, he'll become... become prettier? Is it even a boy? I can't tell...

Alice shook away the stupid thought, however. It did not matter how pretty the ratchild was. How was Alice supposed to take care of a baby when she couldn't even flex her stalagmite hands? Was this really a good idea?

Dirt raised his beady black eyes to Alice the Rock, his malformed body trembling.

"God-Master! This unworthy worm-trash offers up this blood-life to you!"

"Eh?"

Alice blinked in confusion as Dirt's words washed over her. Did he just say...?

Before she could even repeat the words with [Geological Memory], Dirt opened his mouth wide, revealing the impossibly sharp incisors barely hidden within.

"Wait!" Alice shouted as horror thrummed in her nonexistent chest.

[Geological Memory] replayed the horrible moment when Kuonrat's knife had bitten into Bram's throat. She could see the blood splash across Urd's face, could see her pint-sized priestess topple sideways as Bram slowly died. Was Alice about to repeat that insanity now, but with an infant this time?!

But before Dirt's teeth could reach flesh, Urd's shout rang out like thunder through the cavern. 

"WAIT!" The Girl said, and Dirt's teeth stiffened mere inches from the ratbaby's throat. "THE MASTER MERRY WEATHER D-DEMANDS THAT YOU STOP!"

Alice loosed a nonexistent breath. Urd's face had become a pale mask of anxiety. Her limbs trembled as if with memory of yesterday's blood. But the child had not frozen up like last night. She had spoken louder than Alice had ever heard her shout before.

"Urd, tell him that I will accept his child as... as a priest," Alice said, suddenly exhausted. "I don't want another sacrifice."

Urd did not repeat the comment, however. Her eyes had grown as wide as dinner plates as she turned to Alice the Rock.

"A [Priest]...?" Urd said, the words so soft she wondered if even Dirt could hear them. "God would give the ratman... a new Fate...?"

Alice blinked in confusion, but before she could think to reply, Urd rose to her full height, her chest puffed full of awe.

"Master Merry Weather does not w-want a sacrifice!" Urd announced to the trembling Dirt. "She will accept your baby... as a new [Priest]!"

Dirt went very still. As Urd's words bounced off the cavern walls, it was as if every ratman within held their breath. 

"Do not tease-mock Dirt, human child," Dirt said, and there was a violence in Dirt's voice that he had not shared before now. "God-Master... God-Master would never...!"

"Are you calling my priestess a liar?!" Alice boomed, grabbing hold of Dirt's ear with [Malevolent Whisper]. "Are you my follower or not?!"

Dirt dropped the squealing ratchild in his shock and burrowed half his body into the ground, leaving only his trembling rear end sticking out.

Urd rushed forward, alarm written clear across her bandaged face, and picked up the howling ratbaby. Disgust flickered across her face as she looked down at the writhing lump, but as she started to rock the poor thing in her arms, Urd's face softened, and the faintest smile poked out from beneath her bandages.

"Urd, tell Dirt that I will take his child as a [Priest]," Alice repeated, though as the words left her, she wondered once more about Urd's comment, about Alice giving this ratbaby a new Fate.

Urd repeated Alice's Divine Decree, and a flash of black text momentarily distracted Alice.

Achievement Unlocked: Yours From the Cradle

Alice was so surprised by the new achievement that she did not immediately notice as Dirt dug himself out of the earth. Her attention only returned to the cavern as Urd gasped faintly.

"Unworthy! Dirt's blood-life unworthy of the God-Master!" The ratman's hand was bleeding profusely as Dirt drew closer to Alice the Rock. "But please! Please, drink Dirt's blood-life!"

And before Alice could think to stop him with a whisper, Dirt pressed his bloody claw against Alice the Rock.

Blood offering received from a believer.

Received experience!

Received faith!

Her first thought was confusion. She had expected a curse notification, but none came. That confusion was quickly forgotten, however, as faith tickled her senses, accompanied by the tantalizing taste of fresh blood.

"Blood! Blood for the Blood God-Master!" Dirt cried out as he smeared Alice the Rock with his red wet. Urd watched on in numb horror, the ratchild squealing in her arms. "May she break-shatter Dirt's chains!"

Alice hated it. She tried to resist, but as the red wet soaked Alice the Rock, she found herself drawing in the blood, drawing in the ooey-gooey goodness that had sent her into such a frenzy the night before.

Acquired Blood: Human Forsaken (poor)

Part of her realized how strange the notification was, but she could not help but drink more and more of the proffered blood. It would be a waste, such a terrible waste, not to drink fully.

She might have drained every drop of Dirt's blood and left him much like the husk Bram had become, but a notification snapped her free from her feast. She stared dimly at the words, a half-triumphant smile spreading across her nonexistent face.

Acquired New Status

Curse of the Betrayer: For fighting beside the dragonkin, the descendants of this wretched blood will toil in endless servitude to all the other races. Only death will see them released from their humiliating service.

Alice is a rat momma now! But I think we've spent enough time in the basement. It is time for Waterhold to meet their (old) new god!

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