A legged rapt enjoyed the mudbath. She had wanted to test the cascades, have mud pour on her but other beasts vied for those spots and so she had retreated in her corner to lay on her back lazily, wondering out loud how good life could be.
Most of the monsters coming here were pit fighters licking their wounds. Those she dared not approach. They still had that murderous scent.
And of course, the boiling mud and swirls were for them.
But here, near the entrance, quieter beasts of all kind only rested from travel and strife or spent the shards they had earned from some trade. In short, while the fighters recovered further in, she shared her bath with those who had bet well.
So around her those beasts only talked about who fought best and what the next pits were.
Sometimes a tremor reminded them of the caves, but most didn't even pay attention.
"What happened to the Vengeful?" One asked. "Has he finally lost?"
"I heard he went feral." A menilis answered.
"No, he joined one of those crazy cults." Another cat-rat emerged from the mud to correct. "When they tire of fighting, that's where they all go."
"Getting tired of fighting? How can a monster not want to fight?"
Not that their conversation even reached the cute rapt who had let her head touch the soft soil and rubbed it like a cushion. I knew her body still tormented her, as it did for all; the mana drain never let up; but here she could forget most of it.
The two meniles leapt out of their bath, shook off and hurried out for the next pit.
"Those two..." A magnal grumbled.
This lizard had heavy plates along the mane on his back, pointy ones and thin like fins. Probably brittle. I was standing still, two meters away from the rapt and imagining how that beast had come to bear such scales.
He waded to the pool's edge, got there and focused. The soil and rock turned to sand, grew into a small golem hunched on two round arms.
The cute rapt noticed it too, got startled and then watched in awe.
Already the golem was pouring its sand around the magnal to pull him out of the mud and put him down on the ground.
"Wow!" She exclaimed at that. "You have a golem?!"
"Eh eh!" The beast was proud. "All the fruits of my devotion to Kaele. This thing does everything I want."
"No way! I want one too!"
I pretended to cough. I was meters away from her, a clay golem at her service. But while others could not see me, she had simply forgot I was there.
"You? You pray Kaele?" The magnal wondered.
"I don't want to pray him, he is mean!"
"Then you'll never get a golem. Only those who pray at his altars receive one!"
That was a lie. In that magnal's body somewhere rested a stone tablet that he, knowingly or not, fed and activated at will. Stone tablets had nothing to do with devotion.
But now the rapt was getting jealous. She pouted in the mud, watched the beast leave and exhaled.
"Okay! Caline will pray at an altar!"
"You won't get a golem."
"You don't know that!" She told a golem called Kaele.
The others monsters were starting to go as well, for the next fights, with few wanting to stay. The presence of fighters even a bath or two away was still too intimidating.
They barely paid attention to her talking to herself.
She came out, left the den and once back in the vast caves the legged rapt went looking for a temple.
Not just an altar, she probably reasoned. Those appeared pretty much everywhere, statues and icons for monsters to pray at and make offerings to their pyres. Some to let the last of their mana get consumed.
No, she had arbitrarily decided that it needed to be an actual temple, a whole den with a priest or it would not work. And so she erred a bit among the crowd.
At an intersection formed by a massive pillar formation nested a cantina with, nearby, a small trade in human relics. Most were actually crafted by monsters but just imitating the human culture was enough to give them value in the eyes of customers.
The rapt could not help but be attracted by the glimmer of gems and the noise of the crowd.
The cheapest goods lay on the ground while most were kept at the back and hung on a leather ceiling. Two orcs in chains kept the beasts at bay, axes in hand. The owner, a calwolf, lay on a bed of rapts and conversed with thee buyers.
She saw the feral rapt approach, with worry at first and then with a bit of contempt.
But her new client only had eyes for the goods. In particular, she had noticed a piece of tissue rolled on the ground like a snake. The lavender color had her squeaking.
"I want that!" She exclaimed.
She had probably forgot everything about golems by now.
The pale wolf didn't even need to tell her about the worth of things. Her client was already looking in her fur if shards remained and indeed, of the two dozen I had given her three were left.
She put them on the ground and pushed them toward the tissue.
"Is that enough?"
That made the calwolf frown. Now and then she had such creatures who would flaunt their wealth with such a juvenile impetus that letting them get human craft - even imitations - wounded her pride.
Had she known her kind had been bred for training, meaning to be killed by humans, she would have reconsidered.
"That will do." She hurried before anyone told that rapt otherwise.
Then the beast's eyes went wide. She had seen one of the shards pulse.
"Take that way from me!"
Her voice had turned to disgust. She had risen from her bed and the other beasts, confused, looked at it too before realizing that pulse as well. A bit of shock and horror turned to murmurs among them.
They had no doubt this rapt was feral.
"Why? I want the ribbon!" That rapt defended herself.
"That heart is alive! It has lost all value, I want nothing to do with it!"
"But! But the ribbon!"
"No! No trade for you!"
Her client had to have perceived the chained orc close by move to push her away, but she acted as if he wasn't there. She just looked down and rubbed the ground in sorrow.
"Oh. Okay."
And she turned away to leave.
"Wait!" The calwolf had walked up, baffled. "You are leaving the shard behind?!"
"But I can't get the ribbon!"
The situation had turned from shocking to comical. Now the beast were sneering at that idiot who didn't even care about money. They were also mocking the trader who let easy money go.
But that calwolf was not amused, not at all. I could tell her belly was churning.
"What has the realm come to..." She grunted. "You win, take your tissue!"
She snatched the piece of fabric, threw it at the rapt and pushed the monster hearts to her with her paw. Mockery around her would not cease.
It wasn't a bad trade at all for her, but traders had to control the exchange or risk being ransacked. Worse yet, she now had a pulsing shard no other monster would accept. The calwolf picked that one with her mouth and kept it there while laying back on the her rapts.
The legged one was walking away all joyful, her new prize on her head.
I stopped her, crouched and helpt tie that fabric on her body, where a neck would have been. I made sure that the knot would keep the ends floating above her like leaves.
"There you go, Caline."
"Yay! Now Caline is civilized and monsters will hug me!"
"Sorry for that shard."
I hadn't crafted a pulsing monster heart willingly. Truth was it could happen at pretty much any amount of mana - monster nature obliged - but I could have chocked it. That would have avoided the poor rapt an embarrassing moment.
She didn't seem to care.
Her head was scanning the walls again. She hadn't given up on finding a temple after all but even when the altar had a priest she would keep going, undeterred.
Instead, she asked random beasts who told her of the best temple in the caves of Utopia. Of all the places that prayed Kaele, that one seemed to have the most mana, which meant it was the most devout or the most favored.
It stood mid-height inside another stone pillar, so she went up the ramps where the air was drier and fewer burning rocks lit the platforms.
The temple in question had multiple entrances but most were blocked by boulders. The main path looked like a fault above which stood a four-horned badger head sculpted right on the rock. The fire behind made it look primal.
More and more beasts were crowding under it in a commotion.
She got curious, hurried inside with them and pushed through the rank that resisted going any further. Breaking through, the rapt felt her round legs plunge in puddles of black blood.
The whole place reeked.
While she panicked, monsters around her carried the corpses away, allegedly to pyres. They had to leave, lest the blood turned them feral; but of course their nature spoke louder and most looked for excuses to stay a bit longer.
The priest was among the victims.
"Tell us who!" A couple beasts harassed a magnal.
He was cowering, terrified not just by the accusations; his eyes had seen too much. So he had been there when the carnage happened. A survivor?
But justice among monsters could be very expeditious. And because he was there, no matter how weak he looked, it had to be him. And if it wasn't him, well, they could always unchain him later. So he had only minutes of freedom left at best.
I didn't feel like investigating the scene. And my companion would just scurry out the moment her legs would obey her again.
My eyes were on the four-horned badger statue that dominated the temple. Kaele, messenger of the humans. My own badger mask was more gracile than that.
"He is lying." A greyhound roared. "He knows who did it!"
"He is too weak!" Complained the tenacl with him.
"That just makes him an accomplice."
It wasn't that blind justice that deterred killers from rampaging so freely, but the mana drain. Eventually, as victims accrued, the beast's heart would give out by itself. Whoever did this was digging their own grave.
But for now, all the accused magnal could think of was the horror he had gone through and the fate that awaited him.
His eyes fell on the legged rapt.
"Her!" He screamed. "It was her!"
I could tell he was lying, from the pause it took him to how he had to beat back his memories to make that claim.
There was a beast that looked feral enough, and strong enough. It didn't matter to him if it was her or not. And to the crowd that was now noticing her presence, her tainted legs and pink streaks, the conclusion was the same.
Fear mixed with excitement.
"It could be her!" The greyhound agreed.
"What? Who?"
She was confused, as if the killer was breathing on her neck. I almost spooked her, having moved closer. I knew where this was going.
"It's her!" The crowd let out. "Chain her!"
The cute rapt realized all the eyes on her and shivered. She wanted to flee, stepped back and felt all the beasts blocking her path. Beasts trudging around, encircling her.
And to her, the invisible clay golem standing as her bodyguard was just as ominous as the rest.