As Lilly drew a large and intricate ritual circle with the chalk, John noticed she did it mostly free hand. No lights came from the NCS for her to trace. An occasional light would come out of her strange headgear. As she drew, Lilly said, “You saw those flaming birds. The swarms of insects. You’ve seen the louvre dolls.
“The swarms can merge into a Bronze tiered creature hard as a rock they’ve been calling golems. You know that word is from my people? Or what my people became. Golem. If golems merge into a Silver, they haven’t yet. There’s a limit on how much dark ones can merge from my understanding.
“The louvre dolls can merge into what’s been dubbed a coca, then into wretches. The flaming birds merge into what’s called slender-men, also Silvers. Wretches are Silvers too.
“Those are the ones classified as Dimensional Horrors. They increase in rank or tier by merging. Then there are the Dimensional Abominations. They increase in rank and tier by feeding. That blob with one giant eye with the ropes you mentioned? That’s been dubbed a flesh-monster. The next tier’s what they call a night-gaunt. Those are Silvers. And that’s all I know about and have seen pictures of.”
John watched Lilly draw the large and complex ritual circle using a few differently colored chalks. One fire-bird swooped down towards them and dropped dead out of sight with its blood hardened.
“What’s been a help is the surviving humans here have mostly sheltered in place. Once dark ones don’t see or hear anyone, they kind of just hang around where they are and wait and dissipate after some time. Their senses suck since they aren’t real. No, they’re real enough, but not…you know…real, real.”
Some sort of scanning was done by Lilly’s headgear, and she started painting some with a brush and a liquid that smelled of blood.
“Almost done,” said Lilly. She then produced a small clay jug and tipped it over and a ball came out.
“It’s truly beautiful, what you’ve made,” said John.
Lilly’s little child’s face lit up with joy. “Oh, this was nothing. Wait till you see a ritual that needs a complex circle. The ones the NCS have people copy are serviceable, but the power is in the little things. The details. The beauty. Things a computer will never understand as it reduces everything to function and necessity and math. The lowest and easiest possible working form. The NCS can reproduce art, but it’ll never understand it.”
Lilly readjusted her stacked lenses and started to draw on the ball with a small and fine-tipped instrument. John said, “Well, you really made something beautiful. I wish I could have this art as a decoration for a wall. And have the time and ability to appreciate it in the future.”
Without looking up from her detailed work, Lilly said, “Have your NCS copy and create an image of it. And thank you for the compliment. As I said, I can create far better. Throughout my travels I haven’t met many realizing how truly powerful rituals can be. There’s little that can’t be done with the right knowledge, runes, and ritual.
“This would’ve been easier if there wasn’t glass everywhere. They nuked the dark walker when it went east of here. Around Lindenhurst or Deer Park. Small nuke. Still took out all the windows in the city. Annnd done.”
Lilly held the ball out to John. “Imbue this with your strongest single essence please, my dear heart.” John took out two fire-birds circling above before he touched the ball with his finger and sent his blood essence into it.
“Hold! Wow, this is heavy. Your essence is stronger than I thought. Okay. Shit. No. It’s okay. This ritual will be a little stronger than we planned for. Just in case, I’m making a protection circle for me. That essence of yours should be able to keep me safe.”
While Lilly made a smaller circle off to the side, a louvre doll headed towards the two. John never found out whether it was a spitter or not, as it died too quickly to find out. He thought back to the struggle he had during the Tribulation, finding it hard to believe he nearly died multiple times to such weak foes.
Unlike the fire-birds falling to the ground out of sight, he knew where the louvre doll fell, and went to fetch the crystals, and had to kill one more swarm of bee-flies. On his return, Lilly admonished him for leaving her without notice, and demanded he never leave her so unprotected again.
“You’re right. My apologies. Please hold onto these crystals if you would.”
“I’m sorry if I snapped at you. It’s just…now that I have back what makes my heart content, I don’t want to lose you again. My body is too weak now. And before we start, I have to say something.”
Lilly reached up to hold John’s hand in both of her own. “Our reunion hasn’t gone as I’ve envisioned it. It’s been a disaster. I wanted…so much more. Passion. Excitement. You don’t look at me the way you used to. There’s no hunger in your eyes. Just know I love you with all my heart. I love you more than can be expressed with words.
“You’re the only man I’ve ever loved and ever will love. You are my stars and sky. I’m so happy to be back with you again. I hope things can be as they were before. No, better than before. Far better. I know I have this stupid child’s body but I’m still your wife. You can still do to it as you please.”
Lilly released John’s hand and looked down. She remained silent long enough he wondered what was wrong. Once he noticed she was sobbing, he put his finger under her chin and raised her face. “Why’re you crying?”
“The look of disgust on your face when I said that! No wife wants to be looked at that way. It hurts so much. And you used to call me your dear heart all the time, and your heart’s content, and the greatest treasure in all the world. You’ve not said one thing endearing to me. And now you make disgusted faces as I pour my heart out to you. You no longer love me. I know it. I fought so hard to get back to you. I gave up so much. And my only reward is to be looked at with disgust!”
John put some thought into what he said next. “Lilly, I’ll always love you. You’re in a child’s body. Even hinting I’m the type that could be attracted to a child is extremely insulting to me. I can think of no worse insult. You know my feelings on that matter. That look was only for that specific part. It’s obvious you’ll one day be a beautiful woman. Or I mean you are a woman, but your body isn’t yet. If you looked as you did before, as you did in your Mind’s Eye, how I look at you would be very different.”
Kneeling and putting his hand on her shoulder, John said, “And the same is true for why I haven’t called you any pet names. It doesn’t seem right. Just know I love you, and I also thought about you every day. In the blink of an eye, you’ll have a woman’s body again.”
Lilly stopped crying and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “I’m sorry I cried. Do you know what a succubus is?”
“A prostitute?”
Lilly laughed and put her arms around John’s neck, and put her forehead on his cheek, the same way as she used to. “Uh, no. It doesn’t mean that. It’s a demon seductress. You should look me up on Wikipedia when you get the chance. It’s funny shit. My people…what my people are now, Jews, they say I was the first woman God made. The first woman ever on Earth. Terra, I should say.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
After letting out a new laugh, Lilly moved away, pointed at the ritual she just drew, and said, “Okay. I stand in the center. You imbue essence here until I say stop. Easy-breezy. For the thump ritual, you send essence here, right at this pentagon-shaped rune on the bottom. It will go around the outside of the whole circle. When it meets here, stop. The rest will fill in and the ball in the center will start bouncing. Nothing should be able to enter. Not easily, not Silvers, but still, keep an eye on the ritual. This will be what attracts them. The fliers will probably aim right at it. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Looking John dead in the eye, Lilly said, “And don’t leave me. Once I end the ritual I’m in, it’s over. I’ll have to draw a whole new one. Once the thump ritual starts it’ll probably last for three or four hours with that essence of yours. Longer than it’s supposed to. The dark ones slowly trickle in, you kill them as they do. Ritual ends. We do it all over again. We’ll probably only have to do it twice to get most of them. Three times tops.”
A phone appeared in Lilly’s hand. “It’s almost nine-thirty AM now. AM means before noon. Noon is a little more than two and a half hours away. How are you on essence?”
John, not caring what Lilly thought of it, sighed. “No number says when noon is. The sun and only the sun decides when it’s noon. You know this. My essence is full. Or nearly so.”
“Why haven’t you ranked up if you’re full,” asked Lilly with a confused look.
“Because my foundation isn’t settled. It takes longer to settle than is usual. I can fill my dantian up quickly compared to others. I told you about my meditation technique.”
“Yeah, but you said it was an undirected and basic technique. I don’t know why you think it’s fast, but I promise you it’s dreck. You’re filling yourself up with impurities and other gunk. Do you even tap coiled energy? You really should use one the NCS recommends. It’s not creative, but it’s always right about that stuff. Even I’ll use a modified [Coiled Center of the Universe Technique] while I have a terran body.”
John laughed. “You sound like Pixie.”
Lilly’s face scrunched-up in anger. “Who the fuck is Pixie? How many whores are you fucking? Let me guess, Pixie’s some sort of magical virgin too? You’re such an asshole!”
“Enough! Stop. Pixie was the lady in my mind. The NCS lady. And I told you not to disparage Amber again.”
Lilly had the good grace to look ashamed and lowered her eyes. She kicked her feet for a moment. After letting out a deep breath, she said, “I’m sorry, my dear heart. You know I get jealous and protective of my pretty little monkey. The Natural isn’t here, so you can’t say I’m abusing her. Just tell me true, did you bed that wh…that…that…goddamn! The only word that fits is whore. It’s not disparaging if it’s true. You didn’t know I was alive so it wouldn’t be cheating. I’ll forgive you if you just admit you did. She’s so beautiful. Why wouldn’t you? I know you think she’s more beautiful than I am. You can’t have her as a second wife. Not her. I forbid it.”
John struggled to contain his anger. “Now you name me liar? This is the last time I tell you – she cannot bed a man. She never has and never will. She’ll never have a husband. Call me a liar or disrespect her again and this is over. We’ll part ways here and now.”
A strange device appeared in Lilly’s hand as she looked furiously at John. It looked like half a metal and jagged ball with some lights on it and completely covered her hand. Slowly, the anger left her eyes and the device disappeared. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You’ve never lied to me. I just find it hard…no, I believe you. I don’t believe her. I believe you believe her.
“I’m sorry again. Emotions are nearly impossible to control in a body this age. They run wild. I have the mind of a child mixed with my own. I still find riding bicycles and playing with dolls fun, no matter how stupid I know it is to think so. The last thing I wanted was to fight with you over this sort of shit. Or have you see me act as a petulant child. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
Lilly smiled brightly at John, all her missing teeth making her seem innocent and adorable. He said, “Just…no more of that. Let’s just get on with this.”
Lilly stood in the center of her ritual circle, and John imbued it with blood essence as he was instructed to until she told him to stop. Color grew around her, glowing a whitish purple. She nodded to him, and he went to the much larger ritual circle with a ball in the center. He looked around but saw no dark ones other than fire-birds very far off in the sky.
Kneeling, John infused the ritual. The essence filled the outside of the circle and met at the top. He stopped infusing and watched as essence continued to fill in the beautiful pattern. It all coalesced into the center at once, and he was captured by the beauty of it. The ball rose in the air about two paces before slamming down with a loud, screeching ‘thwomp’ noise that echoed around the buildings of the intersection, and the power of the ball dropping was nearly enough to push him back some.
A strange tingling filled John as the ball thwapped down again. The city felt more silent and still for a moment, and then seemed to feel anxiously alive. Far too alive.
Stretching out his senses, John felt many dark ones rapidly moving towards him. Towards the ritual circle. With his one arm he drew Fireblade from its sheath. He stood ready for them.
Dark ones crawled out of windows, doorways, and the ground. John’s senses filled with them. He decided to try and conserve his essence as he thought back to his glorious battle against the mighty bull-lions of the NetherRealm. If I fell in that battle, I wouldn’t have to deal with my wife now, he thought.
The first dark ones to reach John were fire-birds, and he cut down what ones he could as they dove madly at the ritual circle. The ones he couldn’t cut down flew heedlessly at the circle, banging roughly off it, and lazed dazedly on the ground, making the killing of them easy. He was surprised the fire-birds were Bronze tiered. One tier higher than he was, but so easy to kill.
As John dispatched fire-birds, large swarms of giant bee-flies approached him. He didn’t want to release his senses to feel into each and every giant bee-fly of a swarm to harden their blood, so decided to try a new manifestation.
Other land-bound dark ones were rushing closer, so he felt pressed and directed a spray of essence aspected with his ‘old’ concept at them, hoping they’d quickly age and turn to dust. The essence manifested as a dark spray that did nothing noticeable to the swarm, and it used far too much essence.
Instead of spraying, John decided to try to target an area. He quickly ran through the concepts he had available, and immediately dismissed ‘blood,’ ‘change,’ ‘mercurial,’ ‘old,’ ‘protection,’ and ‘separate.’ None were good for what he wanted. Maybe if he could imbue two concepts at once, but he wasn’t practiced enough to attempt such yet.
Only ‘battle’ was left to him, and he got the new manifestation off targeting the area of the swarm. He was hoping it would somehow damage and kill them. It didn’t, but it did cause the bee-flies to attack and kill one another, and the spell didn’t have a large essence cost. So, he spun around and hit the other two approaching swarms with the same manifestation.
The first land-bound dark one to reach John was frightening to look upon. He didn’t even realize it was a flesh-blob until a red flesh-rope came out of it and tried to bind him up.
The flesh-blob walked on a dozen or so human arms and legs and had at least four human heads poking out of its body, along with additional arms and legs poking out of various other spots.
Fireblade, not even imbued and afire, cut easily through the flesh-rope. A short jump took John towards the monster, bisecting the horrible creature with one swipe. He ensured it was dead by seeing the crystals drop and the corpse disappear.
John wondered why dark ones didn’t leave spirits on death as a single giant bee-fly landed on his arm. If it stung him, he couldn’t feel it.
Some sort of rock monster, vaguely in the shape of a man, was John’s next enemy, and his sword bounced harmlessly off its head, but the creature did fall to the ground for a moment. He tried to enter it and harden its blood, but, unsurprisingly, it had none.
John kicked at the creature’s knee and felt a little give, so he stomped on its chest while it tried to rise off the ground. And then stomped some more, and the chest cracked apart into many pieces.
Another rock-monster swung its massive arm at John, and he cast [Flashburst Pulse] at it. The first of the three attacks of [Flashburst Pulse] shattered the monster into tiny pieces, and the other two sparking balls of essence exploded into the ground, tearing out a large gouge in the road. The manifestation was overkill, and too essence heavy, but he was happy to have finally cast it outside of his Mind’s Eye.
Knowing both rock-monsters were dead as their bodies dissipated, John let the next spear from a louvre doll hit to see if it could injure him. It bounced harmlessly off his palm and clanged down onto the road. He took a small jump and cut completely through the louvre doll, metal spears holding her together and all. He no longer needed to worry about them exploding, and barely felt it as the one he cut in two exploded right next to him.
Many more dark ones surrounded John, including new ones he never saw before. Out as far as he could stretch his senses, there were more dark ones than he could ever guess the number of, and they completely ignored Lilly in her protection circle as they swarmed around it to get to him.
Fire-birds continued to crash madly into the ritual circle that drew all the dark ones to the location. The other dark ones seemed smarter than the fire-birds and bee-flies and only had eyes for John, and ignored the thump ritual completely once they saw him. Good, he thought. He had more than enough targets to take out on all the frustration his wife had caused him.