POV Main

There was a lot of development in those days. At some point I started to tire myself with all of that stuff. We were building something great. I even got support for many of mine ideas. But I wanted to be appreciated more. I didn’t get it from companions. After some time I felt as half deflated balloon.

I started to spend more time on my new hobby. My new hobby was [Flow bending]. Even more narrowed down, but let’s start from beginning.

That evening, when we met, and traded mixture for knowledge from Sith, I felt breakthrough. We left rest of people in pub and went, Sith, Lynx and me, to nearby green area or park. We found some bench in the corner, where there was no joggers. It was evening.

-= I’ll tell you theory first. – Said Sith. – I’m electronic. I was interested in this stuff from being young, seven years old, if I remember correctly. To work with that line of interest you need to be partially also electric and processor programmer today. If, you’re interested, you should buy Arduino set yourself. Sorry, I’ll go to the point. When you work with electric currents and hardware, with time you develop some feeling for voltage. It’s hard to describe, as we humans don’t have receptors or sense for it. Still, your hairs on arms are standing up, air smells little different, there is even difference in touch. If there is voltage around you, that is. You should remember experiments with static electricity from the school.

We nodded.

-= There are also times, when we are electrified by clothes we wear. We are discharging by shooting sparks then. – He stopped for a moment. – I wanted to tell you, that I found this trick like that. But there is no reason to lie. I’m admirer of siths from star wars. Not from last movies, but old badass books, especially before Yoda times. I knew some things about electrostatic effects and wanted to have lightning attack like proper sith master. I experimented a lot. At first it didn’t work well, but then.

He went to the tree. Stretched out his hand and suddenly there was one little line of blue lightning. It jumped twenty centimeters with boom and stroke tree. It was especially captivating in twilight. Little flame showed itself in place of contact, bark was darkened. Flame went out after a moment.

-= Wow.

-= Did you try it against human? – I asked.

-= I did. It works similar to stun gun. But also propels aim with quite a force. And causes muscle contraction with stunned person for few seconds. Only problem is, that you need to use it from close distance, as lightning shots immediately and one can’t control its way.

-= Looks good – Said Lynx. – Teach us.

-= First, you need to have shoes, that will isolate you electrically from earth. Most sports shoes with rubber soles is enough. – We had that kind of shoes. – Then you need to create initial electrostatic charge by rubbing clothes materials. It’s even better, if you can use ebonite baton for this. – He was doing and showing us steps he described. – You should check, if you don’t have tendency to epilepsy, as it can induce attack of this sickness. Ok. Now you should try to feel voltage, tension of electric energy. It’s easiest to feel it on skin.

We were trying to achieve just that. Sith was helping us. It took us about fifteen minutes to feel something. Another quarter to be conscious of it with eyes closed. Sith’s help done a lot, as he could feel electricity on our bodies.

-= Now you need to concentrate, pay attention to charge and will it through [Flow bending] to fingers on one hand. Stop, stop. Go near some tree, otherwise you will shoot one another.

We did, as we were told. Few minutes later spark shot from my middle finger. It was only few centimeters long, but also marked my success. Somehow, it felt natural to me.

Lynx needed more time. It seemed, that electricity wasn’t his thing. He was infatuated with fire, he said. He could sit down and watch flames by fireplace through night, he stated. In the end, he was successful too. At the same time, I was able to create big charge and shot my last lightning with similar strength, as Sith at the beginning. I was high after.

I was developing electric [Flow bending] since then. I found out, that exercising it was discharging phone battery, damaging electronic devices, putting on fire easily flammable materials. Still, I did it a lot, as I was really relaxed by doing magic. I got myself to better psychical form thanks to it. I felt special too.

One day, when I was feeding Dee in funeral home, I got idea to practice lightning there. I was not thinking clearly. In my home I had grounded stake and lightning rod, so I couldn’t destroy much even if lightning went out of control. In funeral home I was too bored to think.

I put Dee close and started to charge myself. I didn’t even check, if doors were locked. There was no cameras in this room, as it was Dee’s dining room. I overcharged myself. Lightning shot by itself. It flied half a meter and hit Dee. Propulsion overturned Dee together with chair. I was in shock.

-= Are you all right Dee? – I asked in thoughts.

-= Yes. But something changed.

I came closer and looked at Dee. There was little area of blue glow that moved through fractal like patterns on Dee’s surface.

-= I can see blue glow flowing. – I said.

-= I can feel some energy under my control.

-= It’s electricity. Can you use it?

Dee shot lightning which hit and destroyed chair.

-= I can. Sorry. I couldn’t feel trigger point before I shot. - He said.

-= If you can use electricity, than maybe I could charge you from electric network.

-= Let’s try it.

-= Just let’s find a way to not overcharge you, otherwise you will shoot randomly. Maybe we could use batteries first.

I searched through drawers. There was torch on batteries. I use them to close electric current with Dee as part of it.

-= Stop. – Dee said. – It hurts.

I stopped anyway, cause batteries became very hot in few seconds and I dropped them.

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-= It hurts?

-= Yes. I think, it hurts because of my metallic patterns. As if electric current could arrive inside of me and hurt me there.

-= But my lightning didn’t hurt?

-= It didn’t hurt then.

-= Let’s try with my lightning again, maybe?

-= Ok, but don’t use much power.

I shot with little lightning. It didn’t hurt. We used batteries again, when Dee had this little glow. It created discharge of glow and little explosion, where batteries touched Dee’s surface. I got my hands burned. It didn’t stop my curiosity. We experimented more in following day. I wanted to check what effect had AC. I was smart enough to use dynamo and not electric network. Dynamo melted. There was no shortcut, only lightning created by me could charge Dee. I would like to check, if others could be of use to charge Dee, but valued this info too much, to give it free.

Somehow Dee become my sparring partner in lightning magic. On session, I charged Dee. I was standing near lightning rod and Dee was shooting. I was trying to [Flow bending] lightning on road in air to lightning rod. It was impossible in moment of discharge, but could be done earlier, by willing to create road for charges.

Dee was shooting weak lightnings. I got hit by third of them. I hoped for some immunity to develop, as shots didn’t charge me.

Most welcome change was in status as Dee got proficiency.

Name

Nameless

Daevo

Equilibrium indicator

Efficiency status

Compared worth

Muscle

100%

100%

16 (16)

Body integrity

90%

90%

14 (16)

Nervous system

95%

95%

16 (19)

Metabolism / Stamina

98%

97%

13 (15)

Will resonance

--- offence

20%

26%

15 (17)

--- defense

16%

17%

14 (14)

Flow bending

19%

26%

--- lightning

16%

22%

13 (15)

I got some damage by training too recklessly. It was mostly inner damage done by electric current.

Dee unblocked some info by getting proficiency with lightning. It was like shadow of snippet of memory. He knew that he had some natural affinity to this energy, but also by developing lightning some other magic kind of energy was blocked from developing. Dee said, that he could name this energy if he felt it. For now we knew, that somehow it was opposite of lightning. But what could it be?

POV Lynx

Sith was coming quite often to my farm. In the beginning of our friendship it was nice. But not anymore. I had girlfriend since some crazy night, which worked on my farm, as I hired her. I wanted more time for us. So we had awkward situation, as I didn’t want to be too harsh on Sith and move him away completely. I knew, Sith had his own problems, as he needed to trade poison for medicine, and there was only that much poison needed. He got least money from Unlimited Devas business.

I was inventing different ways to use him on farm in a way, that he wasn’t sticked all the time to me. Cracks was starting to show up on our friendship. Sith was frustrated more and more. I was frustrated by his lack of understanding.

Then he found himself some use. I didn’t check what it was, just used additional free time to spend with Suzan.

Then my bio-stone said, that piggy biomass went on higher level of quality. I investigated.

Frustrated Sith was poisoning pigs. He had too much poison on him and too much time. He was using very little, undeadly doses to check things. Or steam down frustration. He didn’t took notes, so it looked less like research.

We informed En about discovery. He insisted, that we used it on bio-stones, but with exception of Huntress and Bear. He convinced, that they were too moral, so without their consent we shouldn’t provide them with poisoned biomass. Sith called him, that it was bullshit and he had other motives. En said, that he won’t admit to other motives, but he could show us his notes on [Will resonance]. They wasn’t so good as Sith’s lightning info, but better than nothing. We would tell Huntress and Bear about poisoning on next or one after next big meeting anyway, he argued. We agreed.

Sith was a lot happier, as he had another reason to trade poison with us. He even found himself some hobby and cracks on our friendship started to heal. I was happier too. I took care of daily feeding of bio-stones, had pretty girlfriend and enough time to waste some on stupid things.

POV Coal

I had only three days before backlash would start. Well, it was about three days. Each time my altar was growing even a little, time was prolonging. I already lived through two backlashes. First time was when I left altar on farm and went to do my things. I almost died before train delivered me back in vicinity of farm. Then others took me to my altar. I felt something then.

Second time was when I was spying on Ahriman’s Order activities. I needed to hide for few hours, as few of cultists took rooms in the same hotel. I was starting to lose my mind by the time, I went back to altar. I felt it second time.

I avoided backlashes since I wanted to recover since. I thought it over. I wanted to create backlash in controlled conditions, as I wanted to catch this feeling. During backlash I felt direction and approximate distance, where my altar was.

I didn’t tell others about my plans.

POV Diana, Ahriman’s voice

I had headache. One of cultists died. It could be said death by natural causes.

Last few days I was playing less with LGBT guy. Some other cultists were bullying him sometimes too. John even took a liking to him. Last evening he raped LGBT guy. It wasn’t first time. But it was first time when John fall asleep hugging LGBT guy. It was only natural, that LGBT guy took knife and cut John’s throat.

I didn’t feel that LGBT guy did something wrong. Still I needed to punish him in front of other cultists.

There was also trouble with ownerless seed that was closely linked to deceased.

In the evening after feeding, we congregate in great room. I was sitting on throne like chair, LGBT guy was kneeling before me.

-= There is crime and there is punishment! – I said loudly. – There is also failure and responsibility!

Cultists were murmuring some song. One of them was musician and provided Order with some songs and hymns.

-= You! – I said to LGBT guy. – Are you thinking, that you are better than John?

-= He deserved what I did. – He answered.

-= I ask only one more time. Do you think, that you are better than John?

After moment of silence he decided.

-= Yes. I’m better than John.

-= Good answer! Then you will take care of his place!

Murmuring stopped.

-= What? – LGBT asked.

-= You will be forcefully connected to stone-seed left by John. All cultists can punish you, as they see fit, but without killing you or hurting you permanently. Punishment will end, when you’ll be fully connected.

He started to cry.

-= Take him away and draw his blood on stone! – I ordered cultists.

I really wanted to know, if one can survive linking with developed seed. Not only survive, but stay at least partially sane. I really hoped that was the case.