Cold is the Void

[Amaterasu]

Expedition, Day 16 - Day 4 of the Ascent

The Fourth Hall: Gluttony

"I see that you are... mmmh, ready to continue?"

Once more, Amaterasu, Oki, Urist and Fiara stood before Senecianus once more, their tents and provisions packed up and ready to continue. Senecianus's question seemed rhethoric, but Amaterasu replied anyway: "Yes. Please lead us on."

"Certainly. Please... mmm, follow me." Once more the wampa stood up, led them through the cavern exit into a dark tunnel and along a pair of twists and turns. This time, Amaterasu smelled the new cavern before she saw it, however. The irresistible scent of food entered her nostrils, filled her lungs and made her stomach grumble hungrily. The dried fruit and warming soup that they had eaten for breakfast suddenly felt insufficient both in quantity and in quality.

Then they rounded the last corner of the tunnel and were awestruck at the sight: this cave was a large hall built like a bazaar, with paved streets criss-crossing through a veritable culinary maze. Indeed, rather than simple buildings and establishments the streets were lined with snack cars, takeaways, restaurants, butcheries, bakeries, confectioneries, breweries, cafes, bars, divided by green park areas where trees bending under the weight of not just fruit, but sausages, cupcakes, oven-fresh bread loaves and liquorice bars lined the pathways. Each park had a large fountain in its center which ran with wine, fruit juices and other drinks, and was guarded by gingerbread men armed with candy canes. There were rivers and little waterfalls of chocolate milk with spaghetti growing along the shore instead of reeds, and roasted, steamed or baked fish were swimming around inside it. Amaterasu also noticed large pools of molten cheese with plants hanging large round bags above them, which she suspected to be something tasting like meatballs.

Feeling dizzy, she turned her head to the sky, trying to ignore the flood of smells and the immense hunger that overcame her - and was nearly knocked over by a sushi roll with tiny wings that flew straight towards her exposed mouth. The hit made her stumble several steps back into Oki, who caught her with a laugh while the sushi roll flew over their heads with forceful flaps, seemingly annoyed that it had not been eaten.

"Everything alright?" asked Oki as he helped her back to her feet.

"Yeah, that thing just caught me by surprise." She looked around. "This place... I feel dizzy just looking at it."

"If we start eating we won't be able to stop, I imagine", Oki agreed. "Guys, let's get going. Just don't focus on the smells and you'll be okay... guys?"

Fiara and Urist had not been able to resist. The dwarf had pulled one of the round bag-shaped fruits off of its plant and was digging into it not just with his mouth, but his entire face. Drops of plant fat were leaking into his beard and dripping to the ground. It would have been unappetizing in any regular society, but here his display of boundless hunger and the smell of minced meat roasted with onion was making her stomach grumble. As for Fiara, she was chasing after a man-sized gummy bear, wielding a... liquorice spear? As the bear ran by Oki and her she felt strangely compelled to strike it down and dig her teeth into its body too. But... no, she couldn’t.

“Well, it would seem... hmm, that you need no introduction to this area. It is the Trial of Gluttony... your self-control in the... mmmh, face of another physical pleasure next to Lust, the pleasure of eating and drinking, is tested.”

“We’ve noticed. Where is the exit?” asked Amaterasu.

“Over that way... just, hmm, pass through the center of these streets and you will find it. And if I may give you some advice, keep your friends from sating their hunger. They will regret each bite that they take.” With that the wampa rounded a corner and disappeared behind a hot dog stand. Amaterasu and Oki split up, with Oki grabbing the dwarf and Amaterasu going for the phoenix. They had to pinch their noses and close their eyes to avoid falling for the succulent food waiting all over for them, and Fiara screamed and thrashed around like a kid when Amaterasu grabbed her and dragged her away from the gummy bear.

“I’M HUNGRY! I WANT TO EAT THIS BEAR! IT’S CALLING MY NAME!” she yelled. She had been angry before, but she had never thrown a tantrum like this. When Amaterasu looked back she saw that Oki was struggling with Urist in a similar manner.

“Do you not realize what you’re doing?! None of this is real! By giving in to your short-term desires you are driving yourself to fail the bigger picture! Snap out of it!”

“NO! I WANT TO STUFF MYSELF! I’M HUNGRY! LET ME GO!” She tried to hit Amaterasu with the liquorice stick, which did as little damage as one would expect. Regardless, she gave Fiara’s hand a push, forcing her to drop it. And Fiara began to drum her left hand and the liquorice stick against her arm in an attempt to get her to let go.

Wait. Where was that other liquorice bar coming from? She adjusted her grip to hold Fiara’s arms in place for just long enough that she could see what was going on. Her eyes widened when she realized and she just about froze in place.

“I DON’T WANT to... hey, what’s the matter?” asked Fiara. The sudden stopping of Amaterasu’s resistance got her sceptic. She followed where her eyes were looking.. and screamed.

Her entire right hand and arm up to the elbow had turned into liquorice. It wasn’t just covered by the black candy. It was the real thing. Her fingers had turned to chubby rolls attached to a single larger one which seamlessly connected to her elbow. The Phoenix Blasters were the only thing stilll normal about her.

With her left hand she tried to claw at it, to tear it off, all the while screaming with pure horror. Soon Urist joined the chorus for a veritable cacophony when he realized that his glorious beard had turned into spaghetti and the face beneath was a giant meatball resting atop his shoulders. “WHA’S GOIN’ ON? WHA’S HAPPENIN’ WITH ME?!”

Amaterasu recalled Senecianus’s warning... ‘They will regret each bite that they take’, it had told them. How horribly right it had been. “Pinch your noses and close your eyes”, she ordered, and both couldn’t have done it any faster if she had held a gun to their heads. Oki led Urist back to Amaterasu. There they all closed their eyes and pinched their noses.

“We have to get out of here... perhaps, just like the Trial of Lust, this transformation shall be reversed if we escape the cave”, Oki spoke. “But how will we do it without falling for the food along the way?”

“... here, I have an idea. Use your left hand to grab the arm of the person to your left... make a circle, facing towards each other”, ordered Amaterasu. Fiara was to her left, Urist to her right. She took a breath of air through her mouth then let go of her nose, swiftly making her Yasakani no Magatama split into four smaller chains with three beads each, that wrapped around the left wrist and right arm of all four of them and locked them together. This way they could not remove their hands or pull their arm away. “Okay, and now think of rotten food. Of foul, putrid meat, dark green, festering, crawling with maggots, reeking of decay... and speak about it. Describe it in detail to each other.”

Urist looked a little green as Oki caught on and hastily began to describe the imagined rotten meat’s scent in such painstaking detail that Amaterasu could almost smell it. Oki and her turned the circle in such a way that they stood on the left and right, with Fiara facing the way which they came from and Urist the way they were headed. With glances at each other they took turns in looking forward, along the pathway that led them through the cave, until the sights made their stomachs grumble and they needed to take a breather with their eyes closed and their attention turned to the talking. They advanced very slowly this way, but none of them succumbed to the numerous stands and the enticing words that the shopkeepers were shouting at them, praising their ‘wares’. However, Urist struggled against the bonds a few times, as did Fiara. They had gotten a taste of the inconcievably delicious flavours presented to them in this cave, of the foods and drinks more heavenly in taste than Ambrosia, the food of the gods. Despite their mutations, they were aching for more.

After what felt like hours of slowly crab-walking sideways, navigating the maze of food stands and everything between them, they arrived. Senecianus was, as usual, patiently awaiting them at the exit of the cave. Wordlessly it stood up and led them through the dark tunnel. As they stepped through and hastily left the area the temperature rapidly dropped and the smells disappeared. Soon they emerged into a cave, yet another that looked just like the one that they had been in before beginning the trial. They opened their eyes and breathed in through their noses, but all that they saw and smelled was ice and snow, rocks and dirt, and each other.

“Hmm... you have passed the Trial of Gluttony as well”, the wampa spoke. “I congratulate you on your... mmmhm, on your perseverance.”

“Bu... me beard! It’s still...” Urist exclaimed. Indeed, his beard was still spaghetti, and his head was still an oversized meatball. Amaterasu checked and indeed, Fiara’s arm was also still liquorice. The phoenix looked away but Amaterasu could see the tears forming in the corner of her eyes. Tears of desasperation, of worry.

“Ah, yes... hmmh, those are, you would say, punishments. You have not been able to restrain yourselves entirely, you have proven that gluttony has a grip on you. Only if you show restraint and self-control, if you prove that your spirit can overcome the sins, will you be allowed to regain your regular form.”

“Senecianus... what would have happened had we kept indulging in the pleasure? Had we not been stopped by Ammy and Oki?” Fiara asked, although she felt like she knew the answer. She rolled back the sleeve on her arm to check if there were any other hints of corruption on her, as soon as Amaterasu had undone the bindings. Luckily there were none.

“Mmm, then you would have kept eating and with each bite you would have become more like that which you eat... eventually you would have become two more edibles among the others.”

“Wait”, spoke Oki. “Does that mean that the beings we came across were... that they were...”

“Not all of them”, Senecianus said while standing up. “But yes... some of the, hmmh, edibles in the Hall of Gluttony are those who succumbed to mindless eating frenzies, to the pleasures of the tongue and nose, and turned into a part of the Trial itself. Their souls remain stuck in the food and will only move onwards when they are eaten... the sushi roll that tried to fly into Amaterasu’s mouth was one such soul, for instance.”

Oki bared his teeth. “They do not deserve such horrid punishment. They may be stuck for years, decades even!”

“Such is the nature of the trials, Oki”, Senecianus replied simply. “There would be little point in them if there was no risk at stake.” With that it moved away, to the other end of the cave, to wait for them to come and continue.

Amaterasu shook her head. “Oki, I will remember this place... and I will return to it, one way or another, and ensure that these souls find release. I promise. Now come, let us set up our tents and end the day.”

At this point she had no idea of how soon her promise would be put to the test.

18256 + 2016 = 20.272 / 20.000 words.

Amaterasu has regenerated her SP over the course of the night (6/6).