[h2]The abyss emerging into the light[/h2] The Rirakuri, those misshapen tentacle blobs of the abyss, poured through the tunnels of the Labyrinthine City they had been created in, driven by one thing. Hunger The black mass of eyes and tendrils looked like a monstrous abomination, but there were minds there, not those of some feral pack. These, despite, their nightmarish appearance, where people. In some cases, they were scouts, picked out by local leaders to seek out the surface their goddess had told them of, and to then bring its knowledge back down to the rest of them. In others, the front runners, had gone off on their own initiative, unknowingly trending the path of the [adventurer] as they sought out new sights and sounds. Others were refugees, fleeing violence in the depth. Yet, ultimately, it was that raw basic need that drove them. Hunger. A hunger so deep it bordered on obsession, on addiction. For these creatures fed on souls, and truly, there was no fare sweeter than that essence of life, sucked from its body, fresh and virile. Their goddess had brought them into a world where souls were bountiful, found in every stone, let alone every thing that might be described as alive. Yet the depths were mostly barren, and the fickle souls of stones were poor fare, bland and lacking in nutrition, and they did not renew themselves. Nor did the spirits of divinely crafted architecture, and though those were rich and nutritious, more than one fresh spawning of Rirakuri had ended their own existence by devouring the soul of the structures of the labyrinth they found themselves, only for those dead monuments to come crashing down upon them with vengeful ire. Last of all, when it came to souls found down in the dark there were, of course, souls already eaten by other Rirakuri. Never mind that drinking all of the life force sustaining another Rirakuri was lethal to the victim. There were murderous monsters stalking the deep now, and wars raged, between groups of seeking to consume each other’s stores of souls, yes, but also between those sudo-cannibal clans and those that had formed the first moral laws of the Rirakuri: to steal the souls of another was a sin. Unless Rirakuri in question was a sinner of course, in which case it was fair game to ‘reclaim’ their stolen souls as a form of justice. Who was cannibal and who was upholder of the law, then, became rather difficult to discern. Thus, the surface, a story, a fable, a promised land. The tendriled tide sought it, rising up, exploring the maze, seeking exits, and find them they did. But not all exist where created equal. Many born in the east emerged from the castles surrounding the labyrinth’s exits, and found lands only touched by the lightest of divine brush, a wide, flat, featureless expanse covered in dry grasses and slim pickings when it came to wildlife, with only the odd herd of zebras galloping across the land in the distance. Others emerged in barren wind swept mountains or into unpopulated natural tunnels holding no life at all, only yet more sorry stones to sup upon. Others were luckier, and came out even further east, finding the seas bountiful and flourishing, their tendrils forms taking perfectly to the salty waters. The luckiest of all emerged into the dark woods, a realm full of aged life and untold souls, living and dead. Yet all of them did find one thing in common, and that was an ocean of ghosts drifting about, undisturbed since the dawn of time except for the passing of the boatman and his collecting of mortals. That service, slow as it was, had not the time to worry about the souls of everything else, and so here they sat, souls of beasts, plants, bugs, bacteria, stones and objects all, simply idly existing. Waiting to be eaten. The explorers who reached the surface immediately began to gorge themselves on this bounty, devouring the sea of souls, tendrils reaching out and plucking flavors untasted from the veritable buffet on offer. Those in the darkwoods themselves would have thought themselves to be the most blessed and lucky among their kin, for the ancient wood was simply overflowing with spirits, and indeed they were the luckiest, all except, perhaps, for one group who ended up meeting a strange fate that would leave scars upon their kind’s psyche for all eternity. These Rirakuri where simply doing as the others did, peartching upon the battlements of the castle like a horde of sea anemones, their tendrils reaching up and grabbing souls from the sea, gorging themselves on the delicious floating seafood and vegetation that was too dumb to realize what was going until it was too late, when they where rudely interrupted. “Well well well, what’s all this then?” came a voice from atop a tower in the castle looking down at them all, and when the creatures turned (or formed) their eyes to see where it came from they beheld the form of the one they would soon come to know was Jeon Du Termas, god of these here woods. They only got to do so for a moment before he was gone in a flash, a gust of wind the only sign of his passing as he dashed down into the labyrinth he had created only a bevy ago. The Rirakuri were left confused for a moment, and then as suddenly as he had vanished Jeon had vanished he returned right up close to one of them that was in the midst of slurping up a shark ghost. “Tsk, you look away for a second and your labyrinth dungeon gets squatters,” the god harrumphed, before leaning in and looking the Rirakuri right in the eyes. Well. In an eye, it had too many to actually engage in a stare down. The rest of its eyes looked to and fro at its fellows, then at the speedy goat thing staring it down again and then, after a moment, its eternal craving insisted that it resume slurping on the shark again. So it did, awkwardly sucking on that spirit a bit like an ectoplasmic juicebox. “Ew. Gross. You really are kinda disgusting looking, you know that?” Jeon said as he leaned back away from the monstrosity, only for his eyes to go wide when the form of the creature suddenly shifted, tendrils shifting and changing, growing, shrinking, intertwining and finally changing in color and texture till he was looking at a (larger) copy of himself. Then, it said “is this… better?” to the shocked god, who looked around and saw that he other’s had copied this one and that he was now standing a small sea of doppelgangers. He was silent for a moment, and then, to hide his discomfort at seeing this, joked ”you know, I think taking on the image of a god is probably blasphemy” Unsurprisingly the Rirakuri did not see this as a joke, and so the god got to watch his own form collapsing into a horrific mass of tendrils and eyes in a dozen different ways as they fell to what counted as their knees as they begged for his forgiveness. “Ah, jeez, that’s not. Urg” the god scratched the back of his head awkwardly and then said “Look, you are forgiven, and, uh, the you being horrible thing was a joke. Yeah” for which the tentacle creatures, or rather, the tentacle people, were forever grateful. “So… Your deal is that you're tentacles, you shape shift and you... Eat ghosts?” the god asked, “did someone make you too clean up all the non mortal souls? Because if so I don't really get why they made you sentient. No offense” The Rirakuri looked at one another, and then the one Jeon had first started down asked “Mortal souls?” with the tone of someone hearing about an interesting new type of food they would oh so like to try. Desperately want to try. The, slightly tipsy himself, god thought you could maybe best describe it as the tone of a gourmet alcoholic, which was concerning. “Oook that is going to be a problem. So. I am going to cut this off at the chase and stop you being declared foe of all mortal kind, or being run over by an irate boatman” Jeon said, before telling them to “wait here for just a second” before dashing off for a second time. He returned a few moments later holding the shoulder of a very nervous looking elf ghost (who he’d found conveniently nearby due to them spying on the god and the tentacle people) in one hand, and a rolled up sheet of paper in the other, and found that the Rirakuri had started eating again already. “Yeesh. Ok. you lot have a problem, but whatever, I’m not here to fix that, just this” he said, presenting the elf to them. “Um. ah. Hello-” pre-instructed elf started to introduce himself (as MacaronEye (named after a type of penguin) specifically) but got rudely interrupted by a tendril reaching out to grab him by the arm “Ah!” he cried out in alarm as he got pulled towards the mass of eyes, tentacles and, worst of all, a spike toothed maw, which opened wide and bit off his arm, causing MacaronEye to scream “My god, help me!” in horror and pain, a thing he had not felt since he was alive. That, fortunately, had always been the plan, as Jeon said “tch, disappointing” and stepped in, raised the rolled up paper (which had a detailed contract drawn up on it by an Umbral [pact broker] that boiled down to a self expanding list of mortal races, all of which where listed as ‘do not eat’ on pain of pain) and smacked the Rirakuri with it with divine power, repeatedly, whooping every one of its tentacles and then it’s finally ‘head’ in the space of a heartbeat. Every Rirakuri, and it really was every Rirakuri everywhere, not just the ones here, flinched reflexively as they all were forced to empathize with their punished member. That Rirakuri let go of the now one armed ghost and curled up in a ball of pain, tendrils wrapping around its moaning form as it started experiencing just the worst hangover imaginable. “And let that be a lesson to you all. No. Eating. Mortals” he told them “because it’ll now suck… also its highly unethical anyway, but this should teach you all nice and quick” “Un…ethical?” one asked carefully “Yes. a thing it is bad to do. You have those rights. You know, don’t kill others… whatever you are” “We’re Rirakuri… and, we have a rule, which is don’t kill-steal other Rirakuri’s soul-food” that same one offered after a moment of thought “Oh. well. Here, just extend that rule. Mortals have the same rights as a Rirakuri, and so you can’t steal their souls either. Got it?” Jeon suggested “But… soul-food is soul-food. We eat. That is how it is” another one replied “Ok, let me put it another way. If you eat mortals, they will get mad, gang up, and try to kill you in, I assume, the same way you treat ‘soul-food’ stealers” he tried, but they still did not seem convinced. A few even chuckled at the thought of soul-food being a threat. “Here, let me demonstrate” he said, before turning to MacaronEye and saying “hey you, your mad that that one at your arm right” The elf made an affirmative noise before adding “I mean I’m kinda mad that you let it do it too” and then swiftly biting his tongue “Good good, let the anger flow through you, and then take this” Jeon encouraged him, while offering the ghost a wooden stick. He looked confused for a moment, then reached for it with his remaining despite the fact that he shouldn't have been able to touch it, and then his eyes litt up as he heard a level up notification in his head for the first time since he died, and he could suddenly grip the stick. The new [poltergeist] grinned viciously, and then did what came naturally, which was turn on the hangover stricken Rirakuri and proceed to beat the crap out of the eater of his arm. “And there you go. Now imagine nations of people coming after you. Not worth the hassle right? And if you go around eating their souls, you make yourselves the enemies of every mortal, not to mention the gods who made them. And you don’t want that now right? “N-no?” one preoffered “Good lad” Jeon said, patting it on the tentacles, before adding “now, let it never be said that I’m not willing to use a carrot as well as a stick, so… you lot are explorers right? Traveling out into the unknown, finding new things, going on an adventure right?” “Y-yes?” the one he had pet replied “Well it just so happens that I’m the god of adventurers, so here, let me introduce you all to the wonderful world of levels as a reward for sitting though my lecturing on ethics” he told them, and snapped his fingers, prompting a little notification to ring through all of the present Rirakuri’s minds “Now then, with that, I’ll be off. You might be squatting in my labyrinth now, but that isn’t going to stop me finishing up what I started and making it more interesting” Jeon said, dusting off his hands and turning to go, giving them a parting “you lot play nice now” before dashing off down into the labyrinth once more The Rirakuri [adventurers] were left behind, standing there in silence interrupted only by the thunk thunk thunk of the [poltergeist] thwacking one of their number. That sound gradually slowed as MacaronEye realized he had been left alone with the soul eaters. “I, uh,” he said as the stick slipped through his spectral hands, the anger needed to allow him to interact with the mortal world slipping away and turning to worry and fear “I have friends watching. They’ll know. Besides, I taste icky right? And you don’t want to be unethical, yeah?” he said as he backed off slowly. Slowly. And then made a break for it, sprinting away from those many ire filled eyes. There was a long pause as they processed this turn of events internally, punctuated by the moans of their beaten and hung over fellow. “God banned us from soul-food. Now we starve again” one eventually said, like a cat who’s food bowl was empty in the middle. They got a well deserved smack from another who rightly pointed out that there was still an absurd amount of soul-food to be found. They hadn't even seen a mortal soul till being introduced to one after all and yet had eaten what felt like more soul-food in that time than they had in their entire lives. “So, we need to go back and warn the boss right?” one concluded after they had finished mocking the idiot “You can go, but not all of us. Much left to explore on surface” another said “You mean eat” the first added, knowing what the other really wanted “Also eat. And spawn. With so much soul-food, we can have young at last. I always wanted some little ones” a third said There was a ring of affirmation, they could indeed now spawn many many more Rirakuri. Many more. Far more than the forest could support once the ghosts were all gone, though this would not occur to their kind till later. “Also much to learn about mortals” a fourth said suggested “Why learn? Not soul-food any more” the one who had claimed they would starve retorted “Dangerous” the fourth replied, pointing at their beaten associate. Another round of affirmations “So, how learn?” one asked “Obvious” the fourth replied, before its tendrils rose up, transforming again as it took on a familiar shape that, like the Rirakuri, had a mass slightly larger than a human. “Walk as one, be one, meet others,” said an elf identical to MacaronEye in appearance before concluding its objectives with “and learn their weaknesses” [hider=summary] The Rirakuri, the shapeshifting tentacle people of the abyss, send scouts out their labyrinth city home due to a lack of souls found within it (to such a degree that some have turned to stealing the eaten souls from others bellies). They pop out all over. Some pop out in the darkwoods and are found by Jeon. he learns a bit about them, curses them with hangovers if they eat mortals, teaches them levels, and also makes [poltergeists] so that the ghosts can fight back if they have too. He then goes to add stuff to the labyrinth, while the Rirakuri he has lectured resolve to report back, spawn more of themselves, and turn into elves to infiltrate mortal society to learn more about them (such as their weaknesses). [/hider] [hider=mp] Jeon: 5mp-5ap 2 mp: curse the Rirakuri so that if they eat mortal souls they instantly get really bad hangovers 1 mp: create/teach the [poltergeist] class, which ghosts can gain and which allows them to interact with the mortal world in the way a poltergeist would when they are angry. Ment to let them protect themselves from soul eaters, will likely result in the odd vengeful haunting. 1 ap: teach the Rirakuri about classes End: 2mp-4ap [/hider]