He woke up wrapped in a veritable cocoon of bandages in the medical ward, soaked with sweat nearly as slimy as mucus. Around him was a mess of ancient machinery emblazoned with the holy three-circled symbol of the Atomic Priesthood, the blessed machines buzzing and humming with energy as they tended to their unknowable tasks. Every part of his body stung inside and out, as though he had been fractured and crudely stitched together again. What he knew of what had happened during the final trial was scattered and hazy. It was as though the experience was built of wet dust and sand in his head, and a passing storm came through tearing the structure from his mind until all that was left was a few barely recognisable lumps in the dirt. Flashes of images divorced of context, vague phantom sensations of throbbing pain and confused emotions left as many trails across his mind as the new scars on his body that were proof of the ordeal.
He looked down towards his arms, a dozen or so clear tubes hooked into his flesh and blood left arm now criss crossed with vicious scars and on his right…
He stared at the unseeing eyes that had formed on the surface of ARTOS. Their cracked brown irises were a perfect mirror of his own.
The eyes turned to stare back.
Jumping back with a yelp from the shock he hit the metal frame of the medical bed, to his surprise denting the metal upon impact. The machines hooked up to him buzzed, beeped and shrieked in response to the sudden movement assaulting his enhanced hearing with their mechanical sounds of displeasure.
The door to the place where he was sleeping slammed open and nearly faster than he could follow a half dozen medics, workers and priests rushed in to tend to the machines. Shortly behind them was a hulking mass of tentacles and eyeballs dressed in strange draping robes designed to conform to their unorthodox form and the much more familiar worry worn face of Alexander.
Weakly he gave a wave to his mentor and watched the panic drain from his face with a loud sigh of relief. The mass of tentacles moved forward and stared at him with dozens of eyes, the gaze of each one piercing deeper than the skin much like what he had experienced under the scrutiny of Alexander and Elder Cinnabar causing an involuntary shiver to erupt down his spine and a wave of that strangely slimy sweat.
“Unhook the boy from the machines, they are no longer needed,” the tentacle man said to the crew working on the various devices hooked to John.
“But Elder Aurelium… respectfully we still have no idea what the extent of the Relic’s influence on his body,” a priest objected, earning a stare heavy as a boulder from the apparent Elder.
“Nor have we learned anything of value the entire time the boy has been held here. I have looked within the boy and I see very well the extent of the influence of that artefact, yet the fact he managed to overcome such a thing and escape with enough will intact to reach the First Stage of the Mutant Realm is evidence plenty of the worth of the one chosen to be my heir no? Similarly, would it not be a waste to let this will and potential moulder here any longer when the holiest instruments of the Inheritors of Franklin failed to make any meaningful headway greater than what I have gleaned with a glance?” He rebuked.
“Very well, sir.” The priest responded curtly, clearly disagreeing but not enough of an idiot to argue with an Elder.
With shocking ease and speed the bulky instruments were unhooked from his body and carted away, leaving only the three of them in the room. John was left in between a state of fear, awe and apprehension at the man that was apparently Alexander’s father. He knew vaguely of him from his mentor’s stories, the only adopted son of the founder Aurelium, whispered to be spymaster of the Sect and at the same time mostly a “glorified accountant” in the words of his own son. Looking at the man it was hard to believe the more mundane accounts over the fantastical tales of his terrifying reputation, his strange inhuman form dripped menace and mystery as much as he well… dripped slime now apparently.
Involuntarily he shuddered again and this time a wave of electric power travelled through the slime all over his body, instantly evaporating it from his form and leaving his sheets thoroughly charred.
“I had believed the eyes were his first mutation and based on the account of the others the electricity observed was due to this ‘ARTOS’ inside of the lad, but it seems in fact it is the other way around. I have never heard an account of a bonded Relic mutating with the host, at most a fusion of flesh and mind, but never to a degree that a tool could share in Ascension. You were right to bring this to my attention, son, this is indeed a most unusual situation.” Elder Aurelium noted clinically.
“The others… What happened?” John croaked out weakly. Alexander gave a strained smile.
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“Magni has shared in your growth but unfortunately the other… could not be saved… His injuries were treated but his exhausted mind was too weak to fight the Curse in his body,” Alexander softly spoke.
John’s throat suddenly felt much drier, he felt his arms shaking as weak memories started to flow back to him. “Did I…”
“No, it was not you, rather it seems your Relic was broken somehow by the concentrated Si in the room and it was only your will that prevented there from being more than a single death that night. Ease yourself John, nobody could have known.” His mentor asserted.
“It’s true… I apologise for not being closer to you before this… Perhaps I could have seen it coming. It was my own cowardice in part that led to the failings of your relic not being observed in time, and even then it was only the words of my son that convinced me not to simply hide away once more in shame.” the Elder spoke genuinely apologetically.
“I know your intent, father, but do you not think that statement is unfair?” Alexander spoke up. “After all, the very first thing I did upon reaching the Wanderer stage was to choose a mutation just like your eyes: anything you could have seen coming, I would have.”
“I don’t care… I am just glad you are here right now.” John spoke up.
“Of course,” the two other men spoke in unison.
For the briefest of moments, for the first time in decades, perhaps centuries, the Aurelium clan felt whole.
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Magni looked… very different now. A spider-like array of dark blue eyes dotted the upper half of his face which seemed to have an expanded forehead to account for the additional organs. Besides that, he seemed much more subdued, no longer flaunting overexaggerated disdain for everything that moved. Above everything he just seemed tired, confused and honestly a lot like how John felt at the moment. In an instant their eyes met and wordlessly they acknowledged each other with a nod. Not a word was spoken but both knew exactly what the other was feeling, and as John took a seat he couldn’t help but notice a small smile forming on the face of his… friend?
They were seated like guests of honour before the gathered Sect, the only two Initiates to have been properly inducted into the Sect this year. The great hall was actually rather empty all things considered in his opinion, there simply were not enough true Cultivators to fill out all the seats, indeed it seemed as though it was designed to accommodate the entire servant population as well. Thinking about it that was probably the case, better to be overly grandiose than be found wanting when the need arose to actually gather the true population of the Sect in one place. Even so, it was an imposing situation, and not all the invited guests had even arrived yet, most conspicuously the seat of Sect Master in the middle of the other two elders was empty.
The doors of the great hall opened through hidden mechanisms making it appear they had slid open of their own whim, the decorated murals and engravings depicting the proud history of the sect sliding with the doors giving the images a sense of movement and life. The first to enter was actually of all people Cobalt, who moved with an elegance and composure that was impossible to correlate with the Cobalt that had lived in his memory since that fateful day. Hidden were her claws and fangs, behind long silk sleeves and a demure smile, her pale scaly skin shimmered like pearls under the artificial light of the hall yet there was a hollowness behind her eyes that he did not remember in their first encounter. He met her eyes, some small part of him hoping against all odds that she somehow remembered him, but she simply smiled unknowingly and moved to her seat just below the Elders.
Behind her was a presence that did not belong in this world. If Cinnabar could be considered suffocating, whatever this was stole the air from his lungs. The light flickered for a moment as the aura drew nearer, a suffocating sense of raw power that tasted like nothing but the purest malice. Through those great doors walked a titan of scale and muscle. His upper head alone would be enough to inspire dread with a crown of great horns adorning the scaled skull of a true tyrant, four blood red eyes with all the friendliness of an unchained predator. Yet it was below that which truly fueled John’s fear, for there was a second maw, stuck in an eternal awful grin on his abdomen proudly displayed for the world to see in a gap in the man’s armour. As quickly as it appeared the aura disappeared, sucked back into the body of the monster who commanded it, and yet the fear did not dissipate in the slightest even as the man took a seat on the opposite side of the room at the Sectmaster’s chair.
Everyone who lived in the province knew of the tales, of the two mouthed scourge of the plains. The details were always fuzzy but the tales of brutal violence were clear as day. The man who single handedly scares off the barbarian warlords to the south, the man who melted an innocent mortal to death for annoying him, the man who feasts upon his enemies alive…
Elder Phagos
Lord of the Lead Cave
He should have expected this… he knew… but only through seeing and feeling could he understand.
Nothing could compare to the real deal.
For a terrifying moment his eyes met the eyes of elder Phagos and he felt the blood in his body turn to ice under the weight of his gaze. Quickly he lowered his face, heartbeat pounding like drums in his ears.
Elder Cinnabar who has until now been coiled rather uncomfortably on her modified seat slithered up and gave the starting words to a speech John was only half listening to. His eyes remained fixed on the giant. Finally she returned to where she was seated and made room for Elder Phagos to take the stage.
The light around them dimmed as he rose to his full height. “It was my father who first stumbled across an ancient cache of cultivation material in his youth with a small group of his allies, only two of which would survive alongside him in the aftermath, reforged into something greater. Today we carry forward their legacy, the protectors of the fertile plains of our province against the myriad barbarians who clamour at the gates. Especially in… uncertain times like this, when the heavens and those closest to them are nowhere to be found so nature reverts to its old ways, where even the proud Mauler afflicted by sickness may be drained by a pack of ravenous Chupacabras to the last drop.” He spoke with a layered voice, one guttural and almost incomprehensible, the other as clear as a scholar’s lecture.
“To pass the trials is but the first step in becoming worthy of our legacy, I am certain you have all heard the rumours by now, enemies wait at every corner of our great empire eager to tear us to shreds. Time will tell if you will be worthy to bear the weight of the legacy placed upon us, but tonight we celebrate the growth of our family!” He concluded, instantly moving from the far end of the room right up to John’s face, to the point where he could smell the deathly scent of the second mouth’s breath. That was hardly the worst part though, the worst part was during that final sentence the giant’s eyes were unmistakably locked onto his.
Even as the room erupted into cheers and Phagos returned to his seat the world seemed silent around him. For all his newfound strength suddenly he felt oh so very small.