Shiloh had always been prompt and meticulous, so it was within my expectations that she so willingly provided me with the accommodations I had requested. The still relatively young goddess had transported us to an observation room outside the chamber she had prepared for my final boon, and, as I stood there in the testing facility, I took stock of my surroundings. The cage, sadly, felt inadequate. Changes needed to be made; and so changes I requested.
“Three things,” I told her when she asked what else was needed. “The major reason I specified glass for the material of the container was because it’s important for sight and hearing to be bidirectional between the two spaces. For demonstration purposes, the subject needs to be lulled into a false sense of security such that it believes it can get to us. Also, we need to temporarily allow gates to be opened inside the barrier so that my retainer can move the cargo in.”
These were the first hints I gave to the goddess as to the nature of my final boon: a living creature, one I had not given to Angela during my visit in her realm. Whatever Ms. Kyrie’s reservations about that revelation were, she did not specify. The containment facility merely morphed at her command, and so I gave my final warning before the experiment began.
“Whatever you do, don’t listen to the creature you’re about to see. It will try to trick you, and it will be very convincing. Also, if I start pretending like I’m an actual child, follow my lead.” A portal opened within the chamber shortly thereafter, its rippling facade betraying nothing of what lay beneath. There was no one to emerge from this purple abyss at first, but the screaming from beyond made itself quite evident.
“No, no! Not another cage! Wait!” It was a man – or what appeared to be a man. He was forcefully tossed into the chamber by a tall red-head woman, just before the portal closed behind him in a loud snap. “Let me out! You can’t do this to me! I’m human, damn it! Not an animal!”
Covered in tattered clothes, the bleary eyed, relatively middle-aged gentleman displayed little more than a sympathetic face. He gave no hint of otherworldly qualities as he tried to run back in the direction he had been tossed from, and seemingly collapsed in anguish when all that greeted his bruised shoulder was the “glass” plane that contained him.
But soon after the sounds of weeping came from beyond that transparent divider, he finally took note of the woman and child standing at the opposite end.
“You, you there,” he called out while rushing over to Shiloh in particular! “Let me out! I can’t stand being in cages anymore! Please!” Not long after this plea, he even deigned to notice little old me at knee level. Conveniently, he had never seen me in child form before then, and so assumed I was of no relation to his former warden. “Girl!” He knelt down. “Please, help me! Get me out of here!” And, as if to drive home his plight, he began weeping again. “Please…”
Events, it appeared, proceeded exactly as anticipated. The acting ability of that creature had not diminished in the slightest, no matter how many tests I had applied to its body or how many times it had failed to escape. Nothing substantial would be presented until and unless I presented it with an all too tempting target; and so I put my own theater skills to the test.
“Auntie Shiloh, let’s go find a way to let him out. He looks so lonely in there.” Taking special care to mask my voice even further than it already had been by my loss of stature, I made myself sound like an ordinary urchin from the streets of Adeluna. I even put on my own desperate face as I tugged at my host’s pant leg to give credence to my claimed relation. It seemed enough to placate the prisoner in front of us.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you,” he exclaimed! I directed Shiloh to follow my lead thereafter, turning away from the chamber that contained the specimen just as its mirage began to fade. It started with the sudden and eerie end of the “man’s” formerly incessant weeping. Everything went abruptly quiet the second we turned around, and then, suddenly, a melody of sickening, bone-snapping and fleshy sounds came from behind us. Barely even a moment had passed following that transition before the subject announced its true form, growling and then promptly slamming itself into the transparent wall between us with unmistakable bloodlust.
“And that right there is what researchers have aptly called a Chomper.” I spoke to the Lady whilst resuming my personal space away from her. The two of us turned around to face the grotesque abomination that had once appeared so convincingly human, now little more than a giant maw with legs. He was persistently trying to get at us, covering the “glass panes” in mucus and saliva whilst his many rows of teeth produced unsettling squeals against the barriers that bound him. “They are native to Calamity’s Edge,” I continued while facing this creature with neither interest nor fear, “the pseudo-prison for the big fish in this area. Chompers can take on the form of any humanoid, as you just witnessed, and they are part of what is collectively referred to as The Twisted. The Twisted are what remains of the original city’s population from before the world eater arrived and turned them into things like this. At least, that’s what the Void Scholars believe. As you can see, it’s not like you could ask them who they were before now without having them try to rip your head off.”
I was feeling a bit peckish at this point in my visit, conveniently oblivious to how much the woman beside me was violently panicking. I was actually content to snack despite being faced with the revolting innards of a Twisted once more; but that was primarily because the scene was old hat to me. I conjured up a biscuit to pass the time required for my host to land back in the land of stability, and took miniature bites whilst explaining the purpose of my “gift.”
“This particular chomper came into my possession around the time that Naota and Xunatar had their big spat. It is my final gift to you so that you may experiment on it for the purpose of finding countermeasures, but I deliver it with some precautions. I told you a few moments ago not to trust it, so, first and foremost, I will reiterate that. Chompers don’t reveal their true nature unless they are actively hunting; and they’ve adapted to try maintaining human form as long as possible while awake. They’re like beasts with just enough intelligence to try and trick prey into complacency before they pounce; and the easiest way to tell them apart from a normal person is by putting that person to sleep. That’s because Chompers can’t maintain their human form while hibernating, so they will twitch in ways that are anatomically incorrect and very obvious to the average layman. Waking them from that state will also induce a bout of extreme agitation where they will violently attack anyone near them for an unspecified amount of time.”
