Chương 29: God Has No Ears

The old man told her something about this? Lio looked back at the strange mural, cocking his head to the side. It seemed quite unremarkable at first glance, as this kind of decorative stonework appeared throughout Floor 2's ruins regularly. Lio himself had most certainly stopped even registering it after seeing them hundreds of times. But now that he looked at it more carefully for the first time, he had to agree that this mural was definitely unique.

Unlike the other ancient artwork scattered throughout this floor, which consisted mostly of strange hieroglyphs and strange mythical creatures, the religious components were truly one of a kind. The winged figures especially. And that was with not even mentioning the pot. What were those dark shapes that seemed so furious and desperate to escape supposed to represent?

"What exactly did he tell you?" Lio asked. Ophila shook her head.

"Like I said before, he was delirious for most of it because of the blood loss," she said.

"Instead, he drew me something." Reaching slowly into her coat, she produced a small square of rough cloth, folded carefully into small quarters. She unfolded it. The drawing revealed itself. It had been drawn with a harsh charcoal, the lines rough and unsteady, the visage of a dying man's hand visible in every trembling stroke. Lio's interest was piqued as he studied the image. It was a pot, nearly identical to the one carved into the mural before them. Ophila met Lio's eyes, nodding gravely.

"I don't know what he meant when he drew it," she remarked as she folded the cloth back carefully.

"But he was so adamant that it was important. Even at the very end." She tucked it back into her coat.

"And he did say something while drawing it. In fact, he kept saying it over and over again."

"What did he say?" Lio asked. Ophila looked at the mural one final time, the shimmering water underneath them casting ghostly shadows on her cheeks.

"God has no ears." Ah. Ah. It's the— A sudden and violent pressure drove into his skull. Lio offered no reaction, keeping his expression completely neutral, but the pain was extraordinary, a white hot splitting sensation that almost seemed alive. What was this? What was this feeling? Lio bit the inside of his cheeks hard until a thick pool of blood gathered on the base of his tongue. Why did it feel like he was… Like he was forgetting something?

It was like his mind had been buried under cobwebs, like thick strands of rope had estranged his intelligence. But he nearly had it. The thing he had forgotten. It's the— Then the headache peaked into the most horrible and unbelievable pain he'd ever experienced, a single blinding moment of white enveloping all of his senses, and whatever answer he had almost reached had completely vanished. Lio carefully swallowed the blood pooling in his mouth.

"Are you okay?" Ophila asked quietly, sensing a disturbance in his normally impassive facial features.

"Fine," he managed. Then, William, who had been examining the mural closer a few feet away from them, turned around with an expression of recognition.

"Actually," he said, "I've heard about this one before." Lio raised an eyebrow. Was the good-for-nothing finally going to offer some useful information?

"It was a few days ago," William continued.

"In a tavern in Crater City. I wasn't trying to listen, but…" He tapped his ear.

"You know."

"What did you hear?" Ophila asked, her eyes glinting with curiosity.

"Not much that I can remember." William frowned, trying his best to recall.

"Something about a mural on Floor 2 that didn't fit with the rest of the artwork down here. Someone was saying it was different from all the other carvings, and also seemed much newer." He pointed at the winged figures.

"And they mentioned the pot specifically." He shrugged.

"I didn't think much of it at the time. People talk about Ghenna in taverns all the time, it's usually nonsense."

"Who was saying that?" Lio inquired. William scratched the back of his neck, a small frown setting in.

"That's the thing." He looked at Lio with a slightly uncomfortable expression.

"It was those two. The ones you went to talk to at the Checkpoint." ◈◈◈◈ Scillo numbly stared at the bouquet of wilted flowers in front of him, nursing his aching cheek. How had things ended up like this? He thought back to three days ago, when the strange fairy tale obsessed handler had given him his assignment. He was to find out everything about Wormwood Moss. His history, his habits, his associates. The organization was especially interested in the eighteen months between his descent and his death.

Simple enough, Scillo had thought at the time. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Then he had been informed of his new cover identity. An assistant for the Bloom and Blossom Floristry, a flower shop located in the Third Ring. Apparently, before Wormwood Moss had descended into Ghenna and gone irreversibly mad on Floor 15, he had spent four years working in this very flower shop.

The current owner, one Fettis Groane, had known him personally and was considered a potentially valuable source of information. Scillo's face twisted into one of anger at the memory. Of course, the one thing the briefing had neglected to mention was that Fettis Groane was simply the worst human being Scillo had ever encountered. The man was perhaps fifty, with a bulging stomach and constant reddened eyes that hinted at his addiction to alcohol.

He always tended to arrive at the shop each morning smelling strongly of beer, sweat, and something else Scillo would rather just not think about. He would then curl up behind the counter, and fall asleep within twenty minutes. This left Scillo to run the shop alone. Which might have been manageable, except that Scillo knew absolutely nothing about flowers. At the start, he had tried—genuinley—to learn. But by now, he had just given up. He just didn't have that green thumb.

And so, the flowers were dying at an extraordinary rate. In just a few days, the roses had gone limp, the lilies were all startling brown, and just yesterday, he had accidentally overwatered an entire shelf of something purple and frilly so much that they had simply given up on life as well. The shop was losing money every single day. And to make it even worse, there was the elderly woman.

Her name was Madame Torrivel, a long-time customer of Bloom and Blossom for over eleven years, who had strong opinions about the quality of the merchandise that she purchased. She had come in on his first day and purchased a bouquet of white roses. But then, she had returned four hours later to inform him they were already wilting. He had apologized and offered a replacement. She had returned the following morning with the replacement, which had also wilted. So he had to apologize again.

And just now, she had come in for the third time. The slap had been surprisingly powerful for a woman of her age, and his cheek was still aching because of it. Fettis, of course, had been asleep on the ground throughout this entire exchange. Scillo pressed his fingers gently against his cheek and stared at the wilted flowers. The heck is this? He was deep in this self-pity, when the door of Bloom and Blossom opened with a small cheerful chime.

Scillo cursed once under his breath, then swiftly turned around, slapping a big and cheerful smile on his face.

"Welcome to Bloom and Blossom!" he said brightly.

"How can I help you today?" A woman in her sixties, small and neatly dressed, was standing in the doorway. Carrying a small cloth bag around her shoulder, she strode forward. Stopping at the counter, she flashed Scillo a polite smile.

"Well, you're new," she said.

"Did you start last week?"

"Yes. I'm just trying to be of some help," Scillo said, maintaining his bright smile with some effort.

"Fettis is, ah. Rather indisposed." The woman glanced past him at where Fettis was completely knocked out on the floor behind the counter, snoring loudly as a dribble of drool crawled down his thick chin.

"Mhm," she said, with an unsurprised expression.

"The usual then, please. Yellow tulips if you have them." Scillo turned to the display behind him and located what he was pretty confident were tulips. After all, they were yellow. He deftly gathered them, praying fervently that this woman wouldn't be like Madame Torrivel.

"Lovely," the woman said, watching him wrap them with a small frown that suggested that the truth was far from being lovely. Scillo tied off the paper with a crooked knot that looked ready to untangle at any moment.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. He rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm far from being like the previous assistant." The woman chuckled lightly.

"Don't fret about that. The previous assistant was a complete anomaly. He was one of the greatest I've ever seen at handling flowers." Scillo looked up, casually sliding into the topic.

"Did you know him? I heard he was named Wormwood."

"Wormwood Moss, yes." The woman's expression turned much gentler.

"He was a strange man, honestly. But very kind." She accepted the bouquet and began searching her bag for coins.

"He worked here for, oh, about four years? Before he went down into that cursed pit."

"Did he talk about it much? Ghenna, I mean."

"Constantly," she said, shaking her head disapprovingly.

"Every customer who came in, he'd somehow find a way to bring it up." She found her coins and counted them out carefully.

"A suicidal dream, if you ask me." A tinge of hope filled Scillo's heart. Was he finally going to get a breakthrough at what happened to Wormwood? Would he finally be able to get out of this hellish position? He gingerly pushed forward.

"I heard… that he was acting almost possessed when he came back up on his last descent." The woman frowned, a dark look flashing through her eyes.

"Yes," she said quietly. She placed the coins on the counter.

"He came in here, about a week after he came back up. He was just standing outside, staring at the sign." She swung her bag over her shoulder again.

"I asked him what he was doing and he…" Scillo blinked.

"He what?"

"He looked so frightened. So, so frightened." She picked up her bouquet and untying the drooping knot, tied it tight again herself. She began moving towards the door, waving a hand in goodbye.

"Two weeks later I heard he'd left the city entirely." And with that, she left. Scillo stood still, his mind running through the newfound information. Frightened… He glanced up at the shop sign, looking particularly at the B which had come loose and was hanging lopsided. He stared at it for a long moment, trying to understand what a dying man had seen in it that had frightened him so badly. But nothing came to mind. He was still standing there, his neck craned upward, when the door chimed again.

Scillo immediately turned around and put his smile back on.

"Welcome to Bloom and Blossom, how can I—" He paused, as the person entered his sight of view. It was a young man, around twenty. Scillo recognized him from the organization compound, one of the junior operatives, a quiet boy whose name he could never quite remember.

"Scillo," the young man said pleasantly.

"How are you?"

"Could be better," Scillo answered, the smile slipping from his face. Chuckling lightly, the young man moved through the shop, picking up a bundle of something orange and examining it.

"How's the investigation going?"

"Slowly," Scillo said.

"You know how these things are."

"Of course." The young man set down the orange bundle and picked up something else.

"The handler sends his regards by the way. He sent me to inform you that the secondary team has received some new information." Scillo nodded, and kept smiling. But inside, his heart had clenched tight. A secondary team? What secondary team? The organization didn't even use the phrase "secondary team". They used "field unit two". And there was no way it was just a slip of their tongue. They had been trained for years on proper vocabulary and terminology after all. Unless the person in front of him hadn't.

Who was this person? And why—how—did they look exactly like an organization member?

"That's good to hear," Scillo managed.

"I'll pass that along." Please… please just go. But Scillo's prayers would be in vain. The young man browsed for another moment, until he set down whatever he was holding. He then looked up at Scillo with that same pleasant expression. Then he gave a wide, chilly smile.

"Now," the young man said, his voice turning horribly cold, "let's drop the act." Scillo's smile froze on his face. And in front of him, occurred a scene that would forever traumatize him. Scillo watched in horror as the young man's features rippled, the face he recognized dissolving smoothly like mud being washed away, the facial features sliding away and dripping onto the floor. A girl's face looked back at him, the face horribly injured with purple bruises and deep cuts."

He sends his regards," Walker said, in his regular overlapping inhumane voice.