In an old and collapsed dining hall, a bright flash of light filled the dark space and faded just as fast to reveal a person with tanned skin groaning on the floor.
The man had short brown hair with grey roots. His wrinkled face had stubble and liver spots.
His legs were covered in short but thick brown fur and partially covered the black hooves where one would expect feet.
After a moment of silence, the satyr's green eyes snapped open with a groan turned scream despite being uninjured.
The satyr named Zemako writhed on the ground, clutching his abdomen. The last thing he remembered was being eviscerated, and his brain still thought that it was.
It took a while for his phantom pain to fade enough to realize that he was, in fact, not gutted. He patted himself down to make sure he was in one piece.
"I'm... not there anymore?" His mind raced with thoughts of fear, hate, and terror at what was probably trick, but the longer he sat, the more apparent to him that it wasn't.
The scared memories kept playing through his mind repeatedly, but he could never focus on them for long as his mind began to block out what happened to him without him realizing.
The more he thought, the more it was the positive memories he had about his life and family.
It took Zemako 30 minutes to accept that he was finally out of the hell he was put through muttering to himself. "Finally..."
He looked around confused as he started to think about where he was. "Where am I?"
He was so elated at getting out of there that he didn't even care that he was in almost total darkness.
Zemako tried to stand up but hit his head on stone. He could only go as high as a crouch. He slowly inched his way forward until he hit a cold stone wall.
"A cave, maybe?" Zemako questioned as he felt along the wall to hopefully work his way out of whatever he was inside.
His eyes slowly adjusted to deep darkness, but that did little to help in the pitch black of his surroundings.
He wandered in the dark, stumbling into a lot of large rocks, stones, and things he thought was metal.
He grabbed one of the metal things to see what it was. "...A fork..."
He frowned at the randomness of finding a fork here but brushed it off and came to the conclusion that he might be in a dark storage room.
He began to get concerned about where the exit was and how long it would take to find it when a small beam of light broke through a wall at his prodding, illuminating the space slightly, letting him see shapes of a dining table lined with knocked over chair and a dull golden plate reflecting light into his eyes. "Oh!.. a dining room?"
Zemako moved closer to the source of the light and felt around it, taking note that it was wood and not stone. It even fell apart into dust at his touch.
He felt a lot of wood a lot due to his profession as a carpenter, and he could tell this was an old, old piece of treated wood that somehow survived decades of wear and tear. It's probably even older than that with it just sitting there... How long has my carpenters mind gone unused for?
A bit of happiness swept through him at being able to use his knowledge for something, even if it was just estimating a piece of woods age.
Zemako went to give the wood a push but fell straight through it and was enveloped by a massive cloud of wood dust.
*Cough Cough!* Zemako kicked himself internally for not thinking that through as he waved the dust away, coughing his lungs out.
When the dust dispersed, he looked up with bleary and red eyes eyes at his bright surroundings.
He blinked the dust and pain away, letting the view clear. He rose to his feet on the elevated spot he emerged from with wide eyes at the beautiful site in front of him. "Oh... wow."
The landscape was serene with beautiful cloudy sky's that glittered with sunlight and towering red wood forests surrounding an overgrown castle town.
Zemako marveled at the size of the city. It was magnitudes larger than his home, the fey court, and it was made of carefully made and laid stone, not hollowed out trees!
"Then what I came out of..." He turned around to see what kind of place he woke up in. To his surprise, it was an enormous castle built into a mountain, although most of it collapsed on itself, leaving only the entrance he left from.
Zemako turned back to the green and grey city with a question to himself. "Where do I go?"
It was a good question with the sheer size of the city that would take hours to leave and vague sections that were losing their distinctiveness by the march of time.
Zemako scanned the city for any unique landmarks. Luckily, he could pick out five things that seemed interesting.
A wheat field that still had the grains present, a cemetery with what looked like a library next to it, a smallish park turned forest some visible fruit trees and large flock of birds taking residence there, a different kind of field with a large amount of crates and barrels around it, and what looked like a massive church, and it seemed to be at the center of the city while it was the farthest one away it still felt important to single out despite being so far away.
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Zemako was leaning towards the church since a religion can tell him a lot about what kind of people used lived here and that's what he wanted to figure out first but something about the place drew him to it as well to his puzzlement. "Well, what's there to lose?"
With a smile, he made his way down the mountainside and toward the city center.
The staircase built into the mountain was partially destroyed but was still traversable, especially for a satyr who had the legs of a goat.
Zemako reached the bottom of the stairs in a little under 15 minutes with a hop.
He looked down the street with a mix of awe and confusion. How did he end up in such a strange place, enclosed in a dining hall with nothing indicating why.
It was clear that this place has been untouched for decades or even centuries, with vines holding together the few stone buildings that were still standing and trees budding through the cobblestone path.
.
.
.
Zemako's hooves made a large clacking sound on the cobblestone as he stepped around the trees on his way to the city center. "I couldn't guess how long it would take for this level of collapse."
He could hear birds singing in the distance and even see a couple of deer run past him on his way to the church.
He was enjoying himself when a tremor hit the city, collapsing a few of the buildings around him.
Then the sky turned a deep red color with the sound of metal scraping against metal echoed through the city, and text filled the sky.
[ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR]
[ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR]
[ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR]
Zemako frantically looked around, confused at the turn in events as a migraine assaulted him. Memories of his imprisonment leaked back into him, the gutting, the torture, and how it would depict his family going through the same things.
He scratched at his head violently in a futile attempt to tear the thoughts away. All the pain and anguish overshadowed anything he's ever experienced in his life, and it was going to drive him mad.
[Requesting for permissions to be returned for coexistence] [Permission granted, proceeding]
The tremor stopped, and the sky changed back to its beautiful cloudy form.
[Control regained] [Reimplicating functions] [Stabilizing] [Stabilized]
Zemako gasped as the memories faded. He stood there as the last few minutes turned into a vague feeling of what it was.
The pull to the city center was stronger, desperately telling him to hurry up. "I... should hurry."
The ancient city was restless after the recent ' Error'. The deer were hiding from something, the birds stopped singing, wanting to not attract attention anymore, and even vines were limp.
With anxiety budding in him, Zemako ran towards the church with a new hope for answers and the realization that his terrible memories were being blocked by this space and if it broke, he would too.
.
.
.
Under a broken ornate glass dome roof surrounded by ancient and beautiful architecture. The floor reflects the sunlight let in by the dome with numerous decaying large gold circuits leading to the center engraved into it.
Thick vines covered the roof and the dome over in what seemed like an attempt to keep what little was left in place.
At one of the entrances covered in vines, they shifted and peeled open to see Zemako pushing his way in.
The vines relented, letting him stumble into the church. He glanced around at the large and grandiose space that was larger a stadium in size but the church with intricate carved murals on pillars surrounding a lifted platform. "Reminds me of the fay queens altar."
The pull Zemako was feeling was emanating from the platform, and he wasn't going to resist it.
He approached the center, glancing at the floor
He passed by one of the murals, this one depicting a lop sided doll in a happy figures hand, as six onlookers cheered.
He climbed the stairs to see what the source was but paused at what he saw. "That's it?"
What greeted Zemako was a pile of obsidian shards wrapped in vines next to a pedestal for a statue.
He stared at the pile with little interest, focusing instead on the pedestal because of a dust covered panel he thought had text underneath.
He brushed away the dust covering the plaque that once held the statue.
Its writing glowed softly at his touch, and a gust of wind blew away the rest of the dust covering it. :Our Empress releases us from our thorn shackles at a great cost of her own sanity, so may you serve our Empress with no disdain instead revere her with respect and honor:
The light faded from the words and the pull he felt faded as well. "Who is the Empress then?"
The question goes unanswered, but the pedestal wasn't done just yet.
An iridescent orb, the size of a beach ball rose from the center of the pedestal.
Zemako stepped back as the orb condensed to form into something in front of him.
It was his toolbox, the one he put together over his years as a carpenter. Everything from his mallet and saw to his chisel and carving tools.
He picked up the ash mallet and smiled at the nostalgic tool he worked with for almost two decades.
Zemako reminiscing was interrupted by soft rumbles beneath his hooves.
He was about to panic, but the space hummed in excitement instead of fear.
The outer edges of the stadium like church shimmered as the gold circuits led the light to the pedestal.
After a moment of silence, the plaque shot out strands of white and purple towards a clear part of the dome.
Zemako watched as the threads weaved together and around each other to create a patchy skeleton with extra bones leading down from the arms that he thought belonged to someone no older than 15.
Slowly, the threads coalesced onto the skeleton, filling the bones to a complete form, muscles starting to connect the bones together.
Then, the nervous system and veins layered those muscles in perfect symmetry, forming the silhouette of a human with wings attached to their arms and talons for feet.
Organs followed closely behind with flesh, fat, and skin, building a thin but defined physique.
Zemako realized two things as he watched the process. That the being the threads were making was female and that it was naked. I should loo-
The being glowed brighter and brighter until he was forced to cover his eyes with his arms to stop any damage to his eyes.
He uncovered his eyes to see the result and was still surprised when a person was there, breathing... and alive.
The figure was fully colored with soft pink skin and clothed with a leather vest that covered her chest.
The 15 year old girl's young and cute face had a small scar going her lip to her left eye.
Red and black feathered wings attached to her arms and similar colored plumage covered her thighs to upper calves, leading into feet close to crows.
"Is that what happened to me?" Zemako muttered as he stared dazed at the harpy as she slowly opened her grey eyes in a trance.
The moment trance ended, she started spasming and crying out in agony.
Zemako snapped out of his daze and ran over to the girl to help.
He carefully lifted her up and hugged her, telling her it was over to soothe the screaming kid, reminding him when he did this for his children.
It took him 20 minutes to get her to finally calm down or let this place bury the memories that torment her so much.
He let the child go and lowered himself to eye level to make her feel comfortable for what he was going to ask. "Hi, little one. I'm Zemako. Could you tell me your name?"
The girl glanced nervously at Zemako before squeaking out. "Neio... Where am I, mister?"
"That is something I would like to know as well." Zemako glanced at the sun through the dome with a frown as the vines around the dome slowly receded to show a slightly repaired roof.