“Few Forces in Greater Supply”

The following is fiction I wrote in service of the upcoming game Gigantic, produced by the Bellvue, Wash. game studio Motiga.

Now edited.

The girl leaned against the balcony’s railing and watched the city tumble into the seafloor crevasse. She could feel the anguish of every trapped, dying soul, and it filled her with warmth.



Not bad, for her first try.

A familiar figure loomed in the doorway, as anticipated. The Great Priest of the Incarnate Monarchtopus had come to call—surely there to seek vengeance for the ritual that killed her god.

“Hello, mother,” Xenobia said, still admiring her work.

The Great Priest contorted her face in a look of disgust and responded by tossing a plain satchel to land at her daughter’s tentacles.

“No, you cannot call me that. Not anymore,” the woman said. “You will flee to the surface from the realm of our people. Accept my mercy as kindness to the child you once were, and know that our ties of family are broken forever.”

The Great Priest floated back into the shadows of the antechamber.

“And, in my power as your Priest: if you ever swim these waters again, I will find you and break your neck myself.”

A hideous smile crossed the girl’s face.

“No,” Xenobia said, finally looking over her shoulder. “You won’t.”

Beneath the Great Priest, a swirling maelstrom of ichor yawned open, and tendrils darted upward to entangle her limbs.

“Do you feel that weight?” the girl asked, darting in as she curled the tendrils tighter. “It’s the despair that all those people felt as they died…holding you down. All that suffering is mine to use now, forged into a weapon I can wield.”

The Great Priest struggled, bound tight by the sorcery, and a desperate cry escaped the woman’s mouth.

“Incarnate,” she pled, “give me strength.” The woman’s skin flared blue and white, and for a moment it seemed to Xenobia that her mother might put up a fight…but the dead god’s magic was exhausted almost as quick as it had manifested.

“I ventured to the Deeps, mother, from which your patron deity barred us. There was a mind down there, trapped but willing to share its knowledge—and I think I like its teachings better than yours.”

There was a sound like wrought iron grinding against itself, and a pulse of unnatural light worked its way down Xenobia’s arms and into her fingertips, lengthening them into curved talons. She lifted her mother’s burdened head, to allow the woman to meet her gaze.

“This entity was desperate to bargain secrets for its freedom, and it showed me how to fuel magic with a far more reliable power than faith in your one god. After all…there are few forces in greater supply than misery.”

Xenobia’s face lit up with a smug grin. “I’m sure it didn’t intend me to bank on its own misery, but revealing to the beast that I never intended to free it gave me more than enough might to power my first big ritual.”

The Great Priest gritted her teeth and faced her daughter with all the defiance she could muster. “I will not let you weaponize the pain of any more innocents,” the woman said.

“Mother, you’re not going to let me do anything,” replied Xenobia. Her clawed hand sliced upward, and the Great Priest’s form disappeared within a cloud of her own blood, hanging in the water of the antechamber.

The Great Priest had been a fool to place her faith so poorly, but she was right about one thing—heading to the surface was a wise idea. An endless conflict raged up there, which meant limitless nourishment for her powers and eternal life. A wise idea indeed…

Xenobia snatched up the satchel, went to the balcony, and pushed off.

THE BEGINNING.

“Motiga and Gigantic are trademarks, services marks, or registered trademarks of Motiga, Inc.” I do not own any characters, concepts or ideas present in this fiction, and I encourage Motiga to use the enclosed characters, concepts or ideas as it sees fit—except for the Monarchtopus, which I am probably going to have to change sometime soon.



If any content in this post is hurtful to you or people of whom you are aware, please notify me so that I can understand. I will attempt to correct this post and future posts.

