2018-09-03:A Paradise Befitting
Cutscene: A Paradise Befitting
- Cast:Malfi
- Where: <The Photosphere and outskirts>
- Date: <2018-09-03> Takes place after Tiamat's Wrath
- Summary: <Malfi returns home from Lunar to find that EVERYTHING has changed.>
Home, Malfi was home at last, after an unexpected, extended sojourn on another world.
Make that Home. Some things were the same -- the mediocre food, her cot, the crowded barracks, the stale artificially-heated air, the lines at the showers...
But one thing was very, very different. Mother was awake. Indeed, she could feel Mother's presence. The entire Photosphere reverberated with it, paradoxically energizing and comforting her children. The thrum of the Photosphere echoed the beating of Mother's heart. She was awake, after a millennium-long forced slumber, conscious and ready to lead them to victory! At last they would claim Filgaia for their own! It was all her children wanted to talk about. Mother, Mother, Mother. They were starting to sound like Yarobeleedt.
Malfi pushed that thought aside as she sipped a tube of colloidal metals -- her fifth that morning. It was good to have proper food again after that hideous human stuff, and she'd been making a glutton of herself lately, even foregoing coffee for true sustenance -- at least temporarily. Her compatriots had been teasing her about it.
She'd been sleeping better, too, what with Mother back. Now to check on her specimens. She hoped someone had been looking after them while she'd been gone. Malfi was too low-ranking to have an apprentice; she'd trained some of her monsters to do the grunt work of taking care of the rest.
Her menagerie was some distance from the Photosphere. Otherwise people would've complained about the noise -- and the smells. It seemed quiet this morning as Malfi unlocked the front gate and stepped inside.
Only to get the shock of her life. The cages were empty. Her creatures were gone. Hraaki the Wind Mouse, gone. Her Elbuckies, gone. The Orcs and Gremlins she used for slave labor, gone. Her Fraulosses, more like pets than specimens, gone. Even her prize Night Gaunt was missing! Worse it looked like her lab had been raided, everything useful stripped away. She was left with the shell of a zoo. She hoped her creatures had been returned to the wild and not killed outright!
She knew why. She'd been missing and presumed dead. Still, it would be a whole lot of trouble to capture and train more monsters. She wasn't sure it would be worth it. With conquest of the planet imminent, there was another need more pressing -- one she wanted to consult with Mother about, once she was sure the goddess was in a good mood. Her presence seemed contented at the moment, and Malfi sure didn't want to disrupt that; legends held that Mother had a temper.
Malfi sighed. There was nothing to do now but return to the Photosphere, borrow a laptop, download the data from her scanner into it, and make sure her scanner was repaired. She'd used its battery to help craft a transmitter back on Lunar, and the makeshift battery it was using now was inferior in every way to a real one. Malfi had used it frequently, and the data crystal was nearly full of information on ecosystems and the creatures that inhabited them.
At least she still had Bogey...! She'd dropped in on him first thing, and he'd been happy to see her, as usual, cavorting, puppylike, and she was equally happy to see he'd survived the attack on Adlehyde. It had taken a toll on the Metal Beasts but had been worth it, the final statue smashed, and all true Hyadeans now united under Mother as one big zealous family, ready to storm Filgaia and make it a paradise befitting.