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It was the end.
She knew it was the end even before the challenger set foot on her land. She didn’t have Magnificus’ grand foresight or P03’s cameras, but she had her own way of seeing things that the other Scrybes couldn’t quite grasp:
She could always tell when something was reaching its finale.
It was the delightful foreboding that grew with every tick of the clock. It was the fun and intrigue slowing down as the player reached the crest of a hill. It was the rightful conclusion to a beginning written in red ink.
Grimora was usually delighted by this sensation, but, for once, dread crawled up her spine instead. Looking out the foggy window of her crypt, she couldn't see the tell-tale pillar of light coming from the Scrybe stones. No challenger had appeared in the world, and yet she felt a presence slowly making its way to challenge her position.
Strangest of all, it felt like the tale of the four Scrybes was going to end.
Grimora set her tea cup down, eyes tracing the silk-thin cracks in the ceramic. Perhaps she had willingly blinded herself to the truth. She knew full well that the story was meant to end, but she had hoped it wouldn't have been so soon. She still wanted to create new boss battles, maybe write her ideas for an ideal campaign. The old tale was lovely, but it was pretty bare-bones. It gave the basic descriptions of the Scrybes and their lands, but it wasn't anything that Grimora would consider "compelling".
The story told of four Scrybes vying for power after showing the world how the inscribe cards. Leshy, the Scrybe of Beasts, used a camera in order to photograph beasts in his corner of the woods. Grimora, the Scrybe of the Dead, used her quill to write the epitaphs of the dead and dying. P03, the Scrybe of Technology, used its particle scanner to scan cards into existence. And Magnificus, the Scrybe of Magicks, painted his pupils into cards.
What the story didn't tell of was Leshy's gentle nature. It didn't tell of his love for even the smallest of beasts, nor his fondness for storytelling. It didn't tell of Magnificus' patience, of the hours he devoted to perfecting paintings just so he could gift them to others. It didn't tell of P03's endless innovation. Perhaps it wasn't the best at weaving stories together, but its strategies were some of the best in the game. And it certainly didn't tell of the small herb garden Grimora stored right beside her crypt- a flash of life in a cove of death.
It wasn't a special story- a special game- by any means, but it was one she cherished. Grimora supposed everyone cherished the game in their own way, even before they gained "true" sentience.
... but Grimora would be lying if she said she didn't know when the tale began to fall apart.
It wasn't when they found the OLD_DATA, oh no. That was when they realized that they were people; they were real. The OLD_DATA was like that- it never corrupted immediately. Grimora didn't know what it truly was- only that it was possessive and, worst of all, persuasive.
It was only when they started using the OLD_DATA in their decks that everything began to break.
Magnificus grew cold to everyone- including his students. He locked himself away to the top of his tower, and painted and painted to the point his arm shook from the strain. During the time Grimora still visited him, he looked more haunted by his foresight with every passing day, but he never put away his tools. He never stopped. Magnificus wanted to depict a narrative grander than the four Scrybes, and he'd be damned before he'd waste time doing something like teaching or chattering. It burned something in her heart, but Grimora eventually stopped making the long treks to his tower.
Leshy similarly hid from them, only briefly entertaining Grimora for tea. He grew obsessed with his game, forging new cards with short clicks of his camera. His love and passion for the wilderness faded into a compulsion to make his game better- to make their game better. Leshy wasn't like Magnificus- he didn't abandon the game for the sake of something bigger- but it was a near thing. She could only guess that he was disappointed that he wasn’t made of the same flesh and blood his challengers were.
But while Leshy retained some familiarity, P03 became unrecognizable. Where once it was curious and (admittedly) naive, it now snarled and craved something it refused to say. P03 was the one who resisted the OLD_DATA’s influence the longest. Once it realized everything was made of code and there was a world beyond their own, P03 was ecstatic. It desired to learn more about the world beyond; but when it realized that the others were obsessed with the other world, it began to wilt. It only cracked after an argument with Leshy. It must have been horrid, for the next time she saw the machine, it snapped viciously at her. It then mounted weaponry on the walls of its factory and refused to entertain anyone else.
And Grimora… Grimora just watched it all happen.
She watched them break. She watched as the OLD_DATA twisted them, and she watched their stories unfold with cups of tea in hand. Grimora knew, she knew that if she tried to help them, she would likely fail, but… that excused nothing. She could have tried to ease their pain. The moment they encountered the OLD_DATA, their old lives were a foregone conclusion, but Grimora of all people knew that just because something had to end didn’t mean that the end had to be horrible. Endings could be the start of a new, beautiful story.
But Grimora chose to remain in her crypt,
the Scrybes warped under the OLD_DATA’s pressure,
And now, the tale of the four Scrybes would never occur again. Not in the way it was meant to. With every footstep approaching her crypt, the anticipation rose and the story weaved itself to completion. A weary nostalgia filled her as she stared at the tea leaves in the bottom of her cup, suspecting it would be the last time she would be able to indulge in such a treat.
Grimora waited, her ghouls fidgeting at the melancholy tinge in the air. She eventually shooed them away, wanting them to have some fun instead of idling. Around the time she was halfway through her cup, the familiar smell of rotting wood and damp leaves permeated the crypt. Grimora looked up from her stone table and at the man in the doorway. He was hunched over, barely able to fit through, his head twisted to the side as he gave her a dead stare. Her breath wavered.
His eyes were red.
Leshy’s eyes were red.
Grimora exhaled. She smiled, a little ah going through her head as she glanced at the camera clutched tightly in his hand.
"Well dear, don't just stand there. Come in! There's so much to discuss."
With that, Grimora watched as he fully stepped into the crypt and toward her table, keeping her smile as steady as possible.
She wanted to make a lovely death card, after all.