You look towards the voice. There is nothing to see at first, then the environment seems to shift around like an optical illusion, or like a camouflaged creature making itself known. Then you see… a very eclectic looking being.
“Come on,” she says, “you’re here to see the lab, right?”
You follow her around a corner and through a pair of large, industrial doors. Inside is a room which stretches up further than you can see. It is full of pipes, gears, tanks, and equipment of all kinds, all moving and hissing steam. There’s a tall pedestal in the middle. It looks out of place amongst everything else; it is covered in ornate, polished metal embellishments, and seems to glow slightly. The being turns to address you all.
“This is the Lab of Loneliness- the Machine’s heart.”
“My name is Grimble, I’m a Grim Reaper. Don’t bother introducing yourselves, I already know you all.”
Her rudeness takes you aback, but Fred is unphased. He looks at her closely.
“A grim reaper… I’ve never heard of that! Are you a kind of Machine, too?”
“HA! No.” Replies Grimble, relaxing into an office chair. “A Grim Reaper is a type of Fairy. Machines are a type of Fairy too, but a much higher order of them.”
“Fascinating…” Fred begins to ask another question, but Mark cuts him off.
“Hold up, a grim reaper?? Guys, she’s going to kill us! That Machine sent us to die!”
“Cool it, kiddo,” says Grimble, totally apathetic to Mark’s fear. “That’s just the human name for us, it’s really just a higher order of Ghoul.”
“But, Ghouls eat souls!” cries Mark in anger.
“Sigh… but I don’t have to. I already got enough souls when I was a Mist-Ghoul, then I was born here as a Grim Reaper. Now I just make Loneliness for the Machine.” Grimble is rolling her eyes at how silly Mark is for not knowing this.
“This is the Lab of Loneliness! I just told you.” Says Grimble.
You reply, “Yeah, but, what is that?”
“Well, it used to be a nuclear power plant, but now the Machine uses it to make Loneliness so she can get more Distance. She woke me up here to help her with that, actually…” Grimble trails off, as if lost in thought, then she says, “You know, I shouldn’t say this, but this Machine is actually really broken. Usually they don’t need help making their power source. I think she Twisted too fast and she might not live very long now…”
Fred looks heartbroken at this news. “Oh dear… what happens to a Machine who can’t live? Does it become a Fairy again?”
Grimble shakes her head. “No… a Machine is not like an animal, it’s like a plant. When it wilts it becomes dust that we call crumbles. At least if that happens though, I could eat the crumbles and gain some powers from it, but it’s much better if she lives.”
Your head is spinning. You say, “Hold on, a Fairy is a Machine, but what is a Ghoul? Could you run me through this again?”
“UGHH” Grimble lets out a groan, then continues in a frustrated tone, “A Machine is a higher-order Fairy. There are lot of Machines powered by different things. Any lower-order Fairy could become a Machine. Ghouls are a kind of lower-order Fairy that steals human feelings to gain power. Humans can become Ghouls but animals become Beasts. For example, a Joanna is a type of higher-order Beast. All higher-order Fairies can shapeshift. To become a Machine, Fairies have to use their shapeshifting to Twist.”
“So you can shapeshift?” Asks Fred.
“Yes”
Mark chimes in snidely, “that explains why you look like that…”
“Hey! My friends picked this look out for me!” Grimble looks hurt. You decide not to ask how she can have friends if she lives in here.
“Wait,” says Fred, “then what was the Thing Beneath the Earth?”
“A Beast, I think. Though he was looking to Twist soon. He had a Key buried around that river somewhere…”
