Posted by Gcreep 3 years ago Report

D'aw, I wouldn't have minded seeing where this story went. I always think your work is quite enjoyable, I'm sorry about the reception.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

I can give you a synopsis if you like?
It's fine, I'm just lazy. I have the game to work on, so I don't mind the excuse not to finish this since it expanded into such a vast concept while I was planning it.

Posted by Gcreep 3 years ago Report

Absolutely, please. I like whatever content you make, honestly I just think it's a shame it seems like this won't come to be fully realized, but a short taste would be lovely.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

Gosh, you sweet talker. I suppose I'll post it all here in case anyone else feels similarly.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

Okay, so it turns out Gluttony's plan has always been to turn Tia from a big lazy blob into the devourer of all life. And the way to do that is by mobilising all of the souls in her body so that it works at 1000% efficiency.

At the moment, almost all of the souls in her body are kept as fat cells, who can't move or do anything except passively enjoy the warmth of nutrients from other people's bodies being brought to them. Gluttony's plan has always been to put them to work instead. The problem is that working souls have power, and are able to use that power to rebel, like she and the other Impulses have done.

Now, however, she thinks she has a way to keep them loyal and focused. She has discovered a method for souls to comfortably and reliably digest other souls, without those other souls taking over half their consciousness. After running some social experiments among her personal constituents, the gut enzymes, she launches a new movement- the macrophages.

Under her plan, new souls are given the power to consume their fellows, with the proviso that they use it for the benefit of Tia- consuming the weak and anti-social and swallowing any sign of organised movements.
Her belief is that if souls can feel like they are full participants in Tia's predation and in the joy of digesting a living soul, they will serve faithfully and work to their full capacity.

The only Impulse fully opposed to this idea is Spirit, which is why Gluttony ate him, and why she intends to eat his successor, except the new Spirit and her organisation are smart and go into hiding as soon as the Coalition is dissolved.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

George and all the other new souls are rounded up and informed of the deal at a rally in the intestines with Gluttony herself in attendance.
At the end, Gluttony instructs them to eat each other, and tells them that everyone who gets another soul inside them will become a macrophage and be allowed to work in the body.
George doesn't want to eat anyone of course, but he does want to survive and find Andrea and make amends. Luckily, a tiny woman named Hannah whom he has befriended while standing in line lets him hold her in his ectoplasm until the induction is over, guessing that it's the only chance for either of them to survive.
After a few tense scenes in which their ruse is very nearly discovered and he is ordered to digest her, he finds a quiet capillary in which to let her out, and she runs away, vowing to make it up to him.

George settles into life as a low level macrophage, running errands throughout the bloodstream, trying to match the sadistic bluster of his peers without betraying his ideals, and looking desperately for a way to track down Andrea, knowing that the edibility of souls makes it all the more urgent and less hopeful. This task is very difficult, because macrophages do not have a private life, privacy being considered a sign that a soul is organising against Tia and thus ripe for digestion.
Some coworkers discover him asking odd questions, and decide to test his loyalty, couching it as a friendly excursion to go and gobble up some renegade souls.

They find a very large and placid fat cell, and tell him to eat her, but George, to stall for time, insists on interrogating her first.
The cell responds to his questions with inscrutable answers, which George's coworkers interpret as code and therefore proof of her anti-Tia activities. The more George is drawn into conversation with her, the more open they are with their suspicions of him, until eventually they decide that he has proven himself either weak or disloyal and they are free to eat him.
They attack him, but as he is struggling, he slams them both against the fat cell's flank, and they are sucked into her and digested.

The cell feels safe revealing to George that she is Tia's original soul. Far from resenting being deposed, she in fact doesn't mind retirement, and is happy for the humans she has eaten to run things for her, while she lounges around soaking up their nutrients.
George tells her stories about what a hell Gluttony has turned her body into, but she just shrugs and says it isn't a hell for her. He relates how the humans of Abzu find her repulsive, and waxes fancifully about what the other leviathans must think of her.
Eventually he succeeds in rousing her pride, and she promises that if he can bring Gluttony to her, she will eat her for him, but after that he is on his own. In exchange, he has to visit her twice a week, and each time bring her a happy story to make up for all his complaining.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

While on the run, Hannah meets up with Spirit and her followers, who are plotting a guerilla war against the other Impulses, all of whom have joined Gluttony. After an initial welcome, they allow her to sit in on their meeting.

We learn Spirit's true identity when she insists on being called Andrea, declaring that since she has been de facto ejected from the Council of Impulses, they are all Spirit now.
Over a short, grim discussion, the Spirits lay out their chief problem- in terms of combat, they are at a fatal disadvantage against enemies who will gladly eat them but whom they themselves cannot eat, since their legitimacy depends on their opposition to the new economy of digestion.

The solution they land on, after some sombre deliberation, is to have one member who will eat all of their enemies, who can strike terror into the opposition, and who will have to be sacrificed when the war is won.
Andrea reluctantly volunteers, and to cement her decision, a captured macrophage is brought and fed to her. She is intoxicated by the feeling of having the other soul melt into hers and flesh out all her wilted corners, and she becomes addicted to her new role.

The tone of the celebration turns dark, and Hannah nervously posits that not all macrophages are necessarily villainous. She reveals her connection to George, without saying his name, and Andrea sends her away to gather information from him on the operation of the macrophages.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

Meanwhile, in the outside world, the rush of mobilised sentient blood has turned Tia into a terrifying force. She immediately rises from the lake and consumes Ea, and is now rampaging across the continent, devouring every city in her path, flattening rival leviathans and growing beyond spherical without ever slowing down.

In the frenzy of activity, George is able to find a few moments of invisibility to visit Tia and to search for Andrea. Every time he talks to Tia, he tells her a happy story, and plumbing his memory for new stories keeps him sane in between visits. From her, he learns about her childhood and her best friend Lotan, another leviathan with whom she lost touch slightly before her surrender to Gluttony.
One day, Hannah ambushes him and they have a nervous but happy catch up sesh.
He tells her about Tia, and asks about Andrea. He finds out from her that the terrifying monster the macrophages have been whispering about was Andrea the entire time, and is stunned. Hannah convinces him that if he can bring news of his deal with Tia, Andrea will be more than happy to see him.
George's supervisor discovers him consorting with Hannah, and decides to arrest and digest him. George and Hannah make a daring escape, and set off to return to Andrea.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

Andrea has become bloated and drunk on her own sadistic softness. The other Spirits serve her with a mix of fear and awe and continue the fight throughout Tia's body, filling Andrea with a steady supply of prisoners, but she has mostly lost sight of their cause.
Contrary to Hannah's prediction, she is not at all happy with the news that Tia's soul has been found, and that it has promised to eat Gluttony, since she now has her heart set on eating Gluttony herself, and finding a way to dispose of the Spirits afterwards so they can't follow through on their promise to sacrifice her.

She is, however, happy to see George. She says that she is glad she can at last forgive him for betraying her to Tia, and she has her Spirits seize him so that she can eat him.

Hannah jumps in front of him and says that Andrea will have to eat her first. Furious, Andrea agrees, and Hannah turns to give George a parting hug.
Deeply humiliated at seeing such a tiny woman showing an affection for George that she once shared but no longer maintains for anyone, Andrea makes a grotesque display out of eating Hannah, who wriggles and squirms but barely makes a lump in her body. Andrea makes herself transparent to show off the whole process, taunting George all the while, but just as the last of Hannah is disappearing, Andrea suddenly freezes and looks sick. Her colour and face change, becoming more like Hannah, and she orders the Spirits to let George go.

George approaches her, wondering what happened. It seems Hannah found a love she recognised deep within Andrea, a love for him, and used it to melt through everything that had buried them both, so that now they are the same person, and only their love remains, for him and for everyone. They are at last a Spirit worthy of the name, capable of defeating Gluttony.
As Handrea walks away, the bodies she has eaten slough off of hers and join her as a newly awoken army of independent Spirits.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

As Tia rampages across the face of the earth, she is at last confronted by a face some part of her recognises- her old friend Lotan, now the leader of an alliance of leviathans determined to rein in her gorging.
They talk, for the first time in centuries. Tia is cold, and promises to eat him if he doesn't get out of her way, but he just laughs and talks about their childhood exploits.

At that moment, Handrea and her army of Spirits seize the moment of weakness to storm the cortex, and are met by Gluttony and a host of the most elite macrophages.

As Tia and Lotan talk, Handrea and Gluttony wage war in her brain. At first the battle goes well for the Spirits, but the sheer extent to which they are outnumbered presses them back.
Just when all hope seems lost, Tia herself arrives, spurred to action by George, who told her that Lotan wanted to speak to her.

The action stops, and all is still as Tia wobbles up the steps to her throne. Her buttocks swallow up the small, dignified chair. When she is comfortable, she speaks.
She references an old joke between the two leviathans. She laughs with Lotan, and reminisces for a little while, then she bows and surrenders, and apologises for everything she did to him. Lotan takes her out to sea and promises to take care of her while she's on a probationary diet.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

In the cortex, Tia's soul steps down from her throne and approaches Gluttony. She is about to engulf her, as she promised George, when Handrea puts a hand on her- either for support or to make her pause. The presence of Spirit makes Tia reflect. She speaks to Gluttony, and we learn a bit about their backstory.

Gluttony was a human queen who ruled Ea in the distant past. One day Lotan mentioned that he thought she was the most exquisite creature in the world, so Tia ate her. She showed him her body and asked if it looked more exquisite than usual, but rather than laughing, he shook his head at her and stormed away. Tia and Lotan's friendship had already been strained by a few awkward stabs at romance, and this last act of jealousy tore them apart for good.
In the dark loneliness that followed, Gluttony's voice found Tia, and they talked to each other. Gluttony forgave Tia for eating her, and said she had been right to do so. Gluttony offered Tia love when nobody else would, and she offered Tia a way to make the whole world love her as much as they loved themselves. She offered to take over the dreadful business of suffering and make Tia free at last.

In honour of Spirit and of all the ways Gluttony was there for Tia when she needed someone, Tia decides to forgive Gluttony. They hug, and Gluttony shrinks, as the souls she has eaten fall out of her. Some of them slink away, but most stay around and put forgiving hands on her, until she breaks down and cries, and becomes one soul in billions, indistinguishable from the rest.
The previous Spirit, freed from Gluttony's ectoplasm, approaches Handrea and bows to her, thanking her and acknowledging her succession.

Tia declares she is too fat for such a tiny throne, and she bequeaths it to Handrea, so that she can return to her comfortable spot on her own bottom, and the Spirits can deal with the messy business of dissolving and deradicalising a billion macrophages.
However, she insists that George keep visiting her several times a week, and bring her a happy story each time. If the happy stories stop, she is not afraid to rise up again and put the fear of Tia in whoever took the joy away.

Posted by Gcreep 3 years ago Report

As always I'm awed by the excellent story you created, and damn, am I disappointed that we probably won't get to see it in its full width and breadth. The people who didn't show this some love definitely don't know what they're missing.

Thank you very much for sharing this excellent story, even if it's only a more condensed version of the work as a whole.

Posted by doomed 3 years ago Report

so im correct in assumning that the police are corrupt and frame people to get them killed.

Posted by EmilyNidhoggr 3 years ago Report

Girl's gotta get fed.