Still in the liminal void, Robert entered the car to examine Josie. He couldn't use diagnose since she was in another dimension, but he could check her head and neck for wounds. What he found shocked him. Josie's third cervical vertebrae cracked so badly it slipped to the side, letting the second and fourth touch each other. Her spinal cord snapped. An injury this high on the spine often meant death. Since he knew she wasn't, the diagnostic was quadriplegia, at best. He could fix that injury. It was not as recent as he wanted but all the body parts were there, save for the blood.
He took the Grimoire of Cerebelon and started reading. The religious scripture rambled on and on about their deity. The cultists wished that Cerebelon could descend upon them and inhabit their mortal vessels, granting them great power. It depicted horrendous rituals designed to warp and reshape living creatures, most of them designed to create monsters for war. Robert could only imagine the pain such rituals inflicted on their subjects. After the rituals, it became a compendium on human anatomy. Robert knew most of that from the medical books he read at the library but the Grimoire detailed the ways essence flowed inside the body and how changes in physical structure needed to account for those.
He wasn't interested in the religious mumbo-jumbo or in the ritual mutilation but the parts on self-modification and etheric anatomy made the book valuable. He took a blank notebook and started to transcribe the useful parts carefully, divesting it from the religious and psychotic undertones of the tome. At the last three chapters, the book finally delivered the goods. It described how to create shells for several abilities they considered "exclusive" for their religion.
Robert wasn't stupid. He studied the diagrams but didn't inscribe the shells into his Ethercosm. Unknown abilities such as these could have traps or wouldn't work as well for everyone. Real abilities needed to be custom-tailored to the Archhuman. Those that came from ether scrolls were watered-down, mass-market spells and techniques that could be used by anyone at the cost of diminished power or efficiency. With practice and through evolution, an Archhuman could shape these shells to their own peculiar talent and affinities, making them a better match. But often an Arch would discard a weaker ability when they had outgrown them.
"Now, if I could unravel these abilities and make my own versions of them..."
Robert grinned. This looked like a time-consuming task but he had nothing but time. He compared his transcription with the tome, finding several spots where he might have misinterpreted the text. Perhaps he needed to keep the book for longer. Making a verbatim copy was one thing. If he wanted to understand the subject well enough to separate what was practical from what was fanaticism and superstition, he needed to know enough about the subject to see the thin, meandering line separating both.
He felt his time in the liminal void was about to end. Putting everything inside his ring, he yawned and shook his head. Why didn't he set some time aside to sleep? How long did he need to stay in the real world to get eight hours in the liminal void? Around five minutes. He could afford that. Go back, heal Josie, get her out of the buried vehicle, and then sleep. Sounded like a bulletproof plan.
*
*
Color flashed in his eyes. He pressed a hand over Josie's neck and used healing hands, focusing on the spinal injury. Bone injury was harder to heal than soft tissue, and nerve damage was the hardest of them all. Robert poured essence and forced the vertebrae back in place with sheer willpower, while his other hand guided the head to make the task easier and avoid further injury. It clicked in place. Robert then fused the bone shards and tried to grasp the ends of the spinal cord with his spell. He knew he had committed some small mistakes with the bones. He needed to go back to it and fix those mistakes but the spinal cord had priority now.
The nerve connection needed to be perfect. And perfection demanded time, effort, and energy. Focused, Robert tuned out the exterior world. All that existed for him was Josie's spinal cord. He fused the nerves cell by cell, bewildered at how long the microscopic entities were. And he couldn't mistake one nerve for another. Crossing the neural wires here would force her brain to re-learn how to move stuff. It would be catastrophic if she tried to raise her arm and kicked with her leg instead, for example. While that wasn't exactly what would happen, the metaphor illustrated very well the delicate nature of his task. He could very well fix the spinal cord only to have no effect on her paralysis.
His heartbeat wildly and his hands trembled as he connected the last nerve. Robert ran diagnosis several times, seeing if he hadn't screwed up Josie's motor and autonomous neural pathways. He knew by heart how badly he screwed up her spine now. Three cervical vertebrae fused together, making her neck stiff and crippling the range of motion. She could very well snap her neck just by trying to look to the side.
"I need something to brace her neck," Robert said.
"There's an emergency medical kit beneath the passenger's seat," Amanda replied. "The kind paramedics use. You will find a cervical collar in there."
"I can't let go of Josie now. I need you to get in here and fetch it for me."
"Incoming!"
Robert winced, expecting the girl to jump into the hole. Amanda moved over the wall without disturbing a single speck of dirt. She broke the panel in the middle of the steering wheel, tossing the expended airbag and panel away. Taking a rock from the ground, she shaped it into a wrench and unscrewed the bolts. The steering wheel came out and she put it away. Only then she moved over Josie to access the passenger side. Lifting the seat, she took the cervical collar and passed it to Robert. They collaborated to collar the wounded woman. Robert released his spell. Josie now had to finish healing on her own. Only time would tell if she could regain mobility or not.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
In any case, she only needed to stay alive until they returned to Earth. Robert was sure Samson had the resources to fix her. The real question was if they would spend these resources on her. They only administered the expensive healing potion on him because he was Amanda's bodyguard and Tyrone was forced to foot the bill.
"She's stable. We should get her to the surface," he said.
"Right. Let's go. I stashed the rest of the kit in my ring," she said.
*
*
Amanda flattened a patch of rock and they set camp there. Josie was sleeping on an inflatable bedroll. Robert blinked several times and felt dizzy.
"I need to sleep. Be back soon," he said.
"Back? Oh. The void."
Triggering his talent, he prepared his bedroll and slept. After he woke up, Robert spent more time studying the Grimoire. Mastering these body modification techniques meant a big leap forward in his combat abilities and in other aspects of his life. It could even be called a body tempering technique. Make his skin tougher without loss of feeling, harden his bones, enhanced senses, muscular strength and speed, the possibilities were myriad.
And even after all these hours, the damned tome still creeped him out. The repulsion he felt was the reason he decided to compile a digest of the techniques that didn't offend his moral sensibilities in the first place. Which was a waste of time. He could use the book, right?
Well, no.
Why was he even thinking like that? He should pen down what he wanted, and then sell the damn thing. Wasn't it his original plan? Hand over the Grimoire of Cerebelon to someone worthier of it?
Fuck.
Wait.
Fuck.
What the hell was going on?
Robert dropped the Grimoire. He walked away from it. What did he want to do with the book? Get rid of it. Sell it? Maybe. Burn it? Enticing. Giving it to some deranged lunatic who would make full use of the stuff inside it? Hell, no.
The cognitive dissonance hit him like a speeding train. Bloody hell. Robert rubbed a hand over his face without ever removing his eyes from the book. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and entered the dragon's maw. The liminal void's Netherecho laid itself bare before him. He stared at the book but found no leatherbound paper tome.
Instead, what he saw was a parallelepiped creature. Covered in rough leather, with its spine on a side, two eyes sideways along its flat top. Small pointy teeth ran on the other three sides that weren't the spine and a furry tail laid across the floor. The top rose and fell like a person's chest when breathing. It emanated a cursed aura that made Robert retch. The book was alive. Not alive-alive but it had a representation in the Netherecho. What was it? A remnant, vestige, or spirit?
Wait. The book was ten feet away from Robert, in the liminal void, and moving as if it was breathing. Its affinity was Life. What concept did it hold? Could Robert defeat it? Did he even want a cursed ether construct to fill one of his shells?
He decided not to risk it. Robert approached the flesh tome. It split in the middle, revealing several rows of teeth. A tongue shaped like a page marker ribbon snapped toward him. He blocked the barbed appendage with his left hand. Pain flared as the tongue opened multiple cuts. Robert then struck the tongue using Void Punch, snapping his arm away the moment it connected in a whip-like motion. A shower of gore sprayed away from him. He felt some pain in his right hand but it was dull compared to his left.
The book screamed in pain. Life wisps flowed from the severed tongue. Robert wasted no time gathering them as he moved around the book to catch the wisps. The two eyes slithered from under the front cover and glared at him. Robert felt pain in his head but didn't lose his focus. It was nothing if compared to the mental assault of the reverse recognition squid.
He thought how foolish it was to attack a divine artifact of Cerebelon. Fuck that, Robert thought. Then he realized. The reason the book was still active in the liminal void was because they were "touching" each other. The damn book was still in his head. He fought to wrestle his mind free but he didn't know how. He needed to question every one of his thoughts until he killed the damn Grimoire.
Robert charged, intent on using another void punch on the book. The tome snapped shut as his fist approached, forcing him to abort the attack. Then he kicked the book, channeling void punch through his feet.
His shoe exploded into leather, wood, and metal shrapnel. The book yapped in pain and bounced a few times before coming to a stop. Instead of closing in, Robert moved away. He would lose some Life wisps that were bleeding out of the book mimic but that was acceptable if it meant he was safer from its cursed influence. His foot throbbed. The shell for void punch wasn't yet perfected.
The Grimoire was immobile. Robert moved closer, watching its reaction, and grabbing the Life wisps that came his way. The tome had a moon-shaped cut at its bottom. he could see that some content was lost. An eye on a stalk rose and glared at him. Robert lifted his hand and closed it into a fist. The book winced. Its cursed aura was dim now.
"Submit or die," He threatened.
The book whined. Robert studied it. Adaptation. That was the book's concept. As he analyzed its aura, he guessed it was a low-ranked spirit. And it was not unique. Somewhere, other Grimoires of Cerebelon just like this one lurked in wait of mentally weak Life Archs to dominate and turn into tools for their master.
Greed clasped Robert's heart. He could trap this etheric creature in one of his shells and evolve it. He wondered if that was a wise thing to do. He wondered if that was something the book wanted him to do. Although it should be safe to trap them in a shell, the Grimoire was an exception. Its cursed nature and mental abilities were troublesome. Could it dominate him from within the shell?
"Who is your master, spirit?"
"I'm not a spirit. I'm a vestige."
"Who is your master, tome?"
"You are," the Grimoire spoke.
"Who is Cerebelon?"
"My former master."
"Will you attempt to corrupt me or dominate my mind?"
"Never, master."
Etheric constructs seldom lied. Some, like the Prime Vestiges, were incapable of doing that. Robert summoned the shell for healing hands. The spell, already mastered at this stage. And since the spell came from a common scroll, Robert could ditch the shell and start anew if things went awry. The shell opened like a cage and zipped past to swallow the Grimoire. As it closed, the runic bands of the shell solidified and took on a pastel hue of yellow, like tarnished gold. Power flowed through the shell and into Robert.
Robert christened the new spell, "evolutive heal". Studying the shell, knowledge of what it did became apparent. The more he healed a certain kind of wound, the better he would mend said wounds.
Out of the Netherecho, the book was damaged and faded. Paper confetti littered the campsite. Robert examined it and found he couldn't read what it. Every illustration was damaged, and the fragments of text he could decipher made no sense.
But what he managed to transcribe into his notepad remained. He even checked it on the Netherecho, it was just a mundane notebook.
When he returned to the real world, the ground shook as a rumbling scream passed over them.