Charles got up from being stabbed, chopped, thrown in acid, and immolated, because the insect children tried to get rid of his body.
“I can’t become a murderer big sis, I only have one eye. You don’t know what they’d do to kids who only has one eye.” The ant boy said in a cowardly voice.
“Shut up for a second kizit, I need to think.” The arachne, Dina, said while massaging her temples.
“I say we burn it even more!” The worm girl, who was actually just called worm, stood by holding a torch.
“Vhets chush eetch cha vhahn cheena, itch fwee pwotchein (Let’s just eat the man Dina, its free protein.)” The centipede girl, berry, was currently snacking on his roasted roach arm. They chopped it off of his arm and roasted it to perfection, which made him salivate.
Charles was lying limp and pretending to be dead, hoping the kids would just leave him already. A shiv was currently stabbed in his crotch by the snail boy, which hurts like a bitch.
Dina knocked the roach arm off of her sister’s hand.
“Stop that! You don’t know if he was carrying some kind of parasite. He probably diddles kids, probably why he followed me here.”
The nerve of this girl!
“Guys umm my shiv is stuck in his no-no area. Could you help me get it out?” The snail boy said.
“Not now fomp.” Dina dismissed him. “Maybe if we throw him in the sewers, the rats might get him.”
Yes, yes, throw me in the sewers and I can get away!
“But guys my shiv is stuck.” The snail boy kept whining.
Not now fomp!
The bedridden woman stood up on her shaky legs.
“No, let me handle this. I’ll take the blame.” She coughed in a piece of cloth staining the whole rag.
Wow that’s a lot of blood lady.
“Mom! Don’t stand up, you need to rest! I’ll find a way, just rest for now.” Dina said, her brows furrowed.
The older arachne winked in an unconvincing manner, before weaving silk out of thin air.
“WEB!”
She cast a spell that made all the kid’s eyes glow in awe. She weaved wire thin silk strands that could cut stone with ease. She targeted charles, slowly charging up the spell and winked, blood trailing off of her lips. She tried to play it off as cool, but her sunken eyes and bony features made her look like a ghost.
“Don’t worry kids, your mom used to be a blade for hire. And a really good one to boot.”
Before she could have unleashed the spell however, she coughed heavily and instantly lost focus, making the wire thin threads into soft ribbons instead.
*Cough* *Hack*
“Enough mom, just rest for now.” The ant boy said, carrying her to her bed.
The snail boy was still fixated on the shiv.
“I’m gonna grab it.”
Wait no! I could handle the pain and all that. But having a kid touch my crotch is a big no!
Charles avoided the slimy hand, bobbing and weaving his crotch away from a minors hand.
“Away with you!” Charles declared.
“GAAHH!” They said in unison.
“Zombie!” Berry said, picking up his chopped arm.
The mother stood and quickly got in between him and the children. Her pencil thin frame covering their eyes.
“Run while I hold him off! Dina take your siblings!”
“But mom!”
“Go! Go while I still have time!” She coughed blood, spraying Charles with red ichor. She was struggling to stand up, but somehow still looked cool like those characters from the books that Judith usually hides.
“Wait, wait, wait I’m not a zombie. I’m not a zombie.” Charles raised his arms, well arm, up.
“But you were dead.” Dina said.
“No I’m not a zombie or dead. *Sigh* Look, I just came here to find an apprentice. But getting jumped by kids stabbing you in the crotch wasn’t exactly a part of my schedule.”
Charles simply flicked his antennae and regrew all of his limbs, all of his cracked chitin, and all of his flesh. LIFE sprung all around him, so much so that fungi sprouted from the ground, moss crept and spread all around stone, the microscopic seeds and spores that stayed in the air suddenly rooted, and the bacteria that covered the ground bloomed.
Triggered by her reflexes, the older arachne coughed, only to find out that the stabbing pain in her lungs disappeared entirely.
She looked at the roachman as she felt all the aches and pains in her body evaporated. Her wounds stitched back up and her thin frame suddenly filled. Even the children suddenly had their bellies filled. Fomp the snail boy grew more rotund, Berry the centipede girl saw her legs return, Kizit the ant boy suddenly saw with two eyes again, Worm the worm girl suddenly felt the scars of her horrific immolation soothe and disappear. Dina saw all of this and turned her head to the roach man.
Charles shone with a halo that gave life to anything it touched. He was a font of healing and LIFE, a living saint that lived thousands of years serving the Goddess of life.
“Who are you?” Dina said in reverence and awe.
He could say ‘your new master’ to the kids, but that seems inappropriate. Although it sounds cool, saying that to minors just seemed wrong. He turned to the older arachne and smiled.
“Her new Master”
The older woman blushed at the sudden revelation. Despite looking grotesque and unsightly, Charles is actually incredibly attractive by insect kin standards. So the older widow kid of felt like a maiden again as she fidgeted in place.
“Um sir, this is all so sudden. I’ve only been with one person all my life. I musn’t, No!, I shan’t. I don’t even know your name good sir.”
She bowed deeply at the sight of such power.
Charles made life around him sway and dance, as a tempest of light and foliage praised his very form. He made the stone and metal around him break and form a halo behind him. He made himself look cool as possible. He transformed his clothes into living armor that pulsed and glowed with iridescent scales, glowing symbols that serve no purpose other than look fancy, and a crown made of the prettiest shells he could make. He also made his back portion into skyswimmer wings and spread it, spraying glow spores behind him, enhancing his coolness.
He looked fancy, like really fancy.
“I am Charleshun, pope of the Church of Rot, one who serves the Goddess Biolendia.
I am Everdying Saint, and I have come to pick you as my apprentice.”
He said in a voice that echoed, because he made three hidden mouths that all said the same thing. He pointed his finger and said the words he thought was cool.
Holy shit, I sounded so cool!
All of them bowed. The older woman was crying as she pressed her head in the ground. Suddenly a power that Charles never expected filled the air.
“This one is unworthy O master. This one offers her name, Divina, the sixth child of the sixth bride of the fallen Demon God of envy.”
Wait what?
“The last bearer of mark of envy, the endless want.” She lifted her head as her eyes burned with green flames.
Hold on, what was that last part?
“As was foretold by the Oracles of sin, I give back to the servant of the Goddess.”
I didn’t know this?! What the hell?
She pressed her head low to the ground.
“This lowly one greets her new master.”
---------------------------------------------
A week after Charles got his apprentice and La Hire was still searching for his own. Judith and Wyatt already got theirs, so it’s only him and Dennis left.
La Hire wanted to get a really good apprentice, maybe two, or three. He thinks that normal apprentices would make him look like a little bitch, and he cant have that.
That’s why he’s here, in an isolated inter-dimensional location filled with hostile creatures. A layered prison that only allows people to get deeper in and never to get out. Layers and layers of reality altering stone and machinery all made for the sole purpose of containing it’s inhabitants. He was deep inside it and it was true dread made manifest.
It was brutal.
Endless screens of metal and walls of concrete line the floors. A horrible darkness covers the area, one that drinks in all the light and hope around it. If you look below the railings that support the many many rusting bridges connecting areas of pain and torture, an abyss yawns. Millions of bridges as far as the eye can see thread themselves in illogical patterns, all to connect the labyrinthine rooms spread out in floating concrete islands.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
A tower lies at the center of this horrid architecture, one that shows the infinite depths of depravity. This is a place where even the hells are denied purchase, no god, no hope, and no dream could reach this place.
The tower bends space and memory, making each step here a terrible curse upon oneself. In the dim darkness, there is a set of words that always appear in a concrete wall. It could be seen by any individual, an anomaly that inspires dread.
This is not a place of honor
No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here
No soul can be saved here
Nothing is valued here
Turn back
Heavy Metal Prison, this is the name made for this place. It is a place that promises nothing of value.. A place of torment and pain between all planes of reality.
In the lower reaches of the prison lie three rooms, each one heavily modified and cut-off from the main timeline. It is padded in magic alloys and thaumic circuits preventing any shift in baryonic matter or system related abilities. Several bones of dead deific entities are processed and made into concrete bricks surrounding the three rooms, preventing any ontokinetic linked deviations. The three rooms are resistant to most reality warping phenomena and have been categorized as Omega class.
La Hire’s target are these three rooms. Just beyond the doors he’s touching lies his prize.
The contents of these three rooms are individuals that were deemed too dangerous to die. These were anomalies that refused the very machinations of fate and chronology, ones that warp every timeline around them.
These are regressors.
He pressed his slimy hand and TRANSFORMED all three rooms into sand and drawings, breaking all the restrictions and perfectly crafted binds made. The locks and mechanisms eroded and decayed into small fragments. The magical circuits lost their power as they became simple pencil drawings moving in the surface, no longer holding significance and symbolic weight. He made it so that the bindings were merely of temporary purpose.
He looked at three very different cages for three very different prisoners.
A cage of red ornate wood containing a wailing bandaged figure sealed by talismans and iron nails. Their skin being stretched and used as manacles to hold them in place. It tried to grasp at anything outside it’s cage to no avail. La Hire can see it’s desire to CONNECT with anything, desperate to hold anything within it’s fingerless arms.
It weeps as it reaches for him.
A cozy room where a person was sitting on a chair and was staring at him, their neck tied with a rope of infinite length. They are sitting in a room filled with symbols and words that spoke of an exchange, a SACRIFICE that could never be prevented.
It sits and watches, weighing the price for being here.
A statue of a floating angel covered in blood and severed hands nailed to it’s body. It is smiling as it is free once more. La Hire can feel it, the deep chaotic desire it has. It wants to hold him like a friend and PLAY with him.
It giggles soundlessly.
“Nice!”
La Hire was planning to get these people as apprentices.
I bet the others are gonna be so jealous.
While he was contemplating on the ways how he planned to gloat over the others, the statue made its first move.
A coin appeared out of nowhere and flipped itself in the air. It spoke without sound, without words with glee.
Heads: You die, Tails: You live
La Hire stood there, simply amused at the childish game. The coin flipped in the air then landed on heads.
YaaY!! You lose!
It said in jubilation. Instantly La Hire exploded to a million pieces, coating the whole are in slime. The floating angel statue smiled with empty eyes as it bathed in the fluids of the deceased slimekin.
It giggled at the prospect of being free again. It has been here before, it experienced loops upon loops upon loops. It was a child back on earth, a world different from this one, and it enjoyed playing. Here it also enjoyed it’s games, sadly very few like playing with it.
The statue began to float out of it’s borders.
Before it even traveled an inch away, the slimekin was there again, gurgling and twisting, elated at witnessing the scene.
I must have this thing!
La Hire moved closer to grab the statue.
Simon says stop!
Everything stopped, the air, the molecules, the chemicals that make up the body, it all stopped.
Interesting, also it is named simon?
La Hire simply ignored the game and moved.
Stop! Cheater!
La Hire blipped out of existence for a moment, before simply denying the effect. He was closer to the statue now, so he simply engulfed it inside himself. He TRANSFORMED the inside of his body into a universe capable of containing the thing.
Wait! NOO!
“Welcome Simon” La Hire gurgled as he engulfed the whole thing.
The teen with a noose opened its eyes and furrowed its eyebrows.
It was really really weirded out right now. It was confused at how a slime just came here and broke all the restrictions in this place. They stayed here for years and she knew the statue thing was a horrifying monster. Then a slime just ate it.
It and the two other things were imprisoned here for horrific crimes.
Tsk
Well it needed to escape then. The air shook as she mustered up her courage.
“I sacrifice the memory of summer.”
Suddenly the teen stopped time and she ran, the noose was always following her, phasing through objects and walls. She walked above solidified air and simply passed through the metal and rock that burried her here.
“Sayonara suckers” She smiled, she could finally be free again and kill the Gods. Maybe she could make a save point that wouldn’t get ambushed this time.
As she said this, her rope suddenly felt slimier.
“Hello” A slime suddenly smiled in front of her before engulfing her.
She was floating in an empty space now, a void that promised possibility and terror.
Also she saw the angel statue floating beside her.
Hiii! Wanna play?
She sighed. She sacrificed some time to make some cards out of nothing.
“Fine, wanna play cards?
La Hire was next to the cage now. He looked at it with fascination.
The cage of reddened wood was covered in talismans and seals that seemed to hate the very existence of the being within it. It cried bloody tears and left unknown marks everywhere. It covered it’s eyes with it’s hands nailed into it. It had metal rammed into its chest, impeding its movement.
It felt unimaginable agony.
“Please...please.....don’t go..” It wailed, trying to reach for him.
La Hire dissolved the talismans and rusted the nails till they were there no longer. He morphed his body into a blade that cut the hinges of the wood. He then entered cage with the creature.
The creature dragged it’s body toward him and pressed it close.
La Hire felt the touch of the thing destroy him, destroy his very being. Pain that was so transcendent that it crossed the boundary of the divine was felt in his very core. A fire spread through the floor and engulfed the air in darkness.
“Don’t leave me..” It sobbed as La Hire coo’d it to his chest.
The monster held horrible promises of connection, of binding, of horror. It’s touch was painful and horrible, yet all La Hire felt was pity.
He pitied the thing as it showed him it’s life before the cage, before the shame, and before the pain.
“Poor thing..” He gurgled.
He put a slimy hand on the nails that pierced it and TRANSMUTED the divine metal into air. He cupped the monster’s face like how a parent would hold its own child.
He took out a wooden box and gave it to the monster.
The thing touched the groves of the box and gently took it from La Hire’s hands.
They opened it and CONNECTED with the intangible object inside. It used it’s system for the first time in a long time. It still bore the unhealed wounds of the first loop, but somehow this gift eased the pain they carried.
Soul of Intelligent Design
Relic, Legendary, Soulbound, Immutable
Allows one to form a soulbound companion that will assist the wielder. It gains properties based on the user’s needs and wishes.
“You are no longer alone.”
The creature held the box and put it close to it’s chest.
It wept, not out of pain or fear, but out of gratitude.
La Hire saw this and smiled, well metaphorically speaking. Melting all those artifacts was worth it just to see it get put to use. Sure, he might need to pilfer more artifacts in the future, but he can always wait.
He put a hand on the creature’s flesh prison.
“How would you like to be my apprentice?”
--------------------------------------------------------
Ogier felt bad, his new minion was frozen in a fetal position. It closed it’s eyes and lost consciousness. He covered him in a blanket, his only possession of worth in his cave.
He looks at the one time use soul cup he used to forge a link with his minion. It was shattered to pieces now, unusable and unwanted. He picked it up and put the pieces in a chest filled with broken things.
He laughs. How funny that the things that people consider trash and broken waste is what he keeps close to him. Maybe it reminds him of himself.
He wasn’t rich, or really powerful, or smart, but he wished he was. He was abandoned here because he was weak and pathetic. His siblings think he is a failure, his friends only tolerate his presence, and his parents are ashamed of him.
He slumped his head as he put his knees closer to him. He knew he was a failure, but seeing it manifest still hurts.
He saw his first minion....his first friend, well potential friend, get traumatized just by being near him.
What did he do wrong?
He cried. He remembers his inadequacies and failings and sees how accurate every word describes him. He is nothing but a fool that dared to want more.
He remembers the disgust of his parents in learning of his secret, his curse.
He like someone else once, someone who a boy like him was supposed to like.
He remembers his sweet smile and musical laugh, he remembers the games they used to play, and he remembers the punches he felt when he decided to tell everyone else.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why? Why was he born to be such a mistake? Why was he such a failure in everything he did?
He was weak, he was stupid, he was pathetic, he was a burden.
Tears filled his eyes as he struggled to find a reason for his purpose.
He looked at the shiny parody of fame and fortune he made around him. His fake treasures and useless art are only brittle imitations of dreams he could never achieve. His would-be throne, just a mockery of his misguided efforts. The tomes filled with recipes and novels he enjoyed were mere testaments to his failures as a man. And the weight that he used in hopes of appearing likable was nothing but an empty promise.
He tore it all down. He tore down his dreams, his hopes for being accepted by his family, his wishes of being looked up to, and his wish to be loved. He broke the shelves and chairs that once gave him joy and turned it to what it really is, just lies he told himself would matter.
So he sat there weeping in the throne of rubble made out of his broken dreams.
He was a feeble coward who thought he deserved to be happy.
What an absolute fool he was, now he dragged someone who didn’t deserve to suffer beside him.
He looked up and saw the statues of heroes wielding weapons of legend that he once lovingly carved and saw the sharp edge of a stone sword.
He stood up and looked upon the works that now gave him shame.
He took a stone sword from his fake treasure trove. It was pretty, but brittle. It could probably make one strike before shattering, but that was alright, one strike is all he needs.
He hates himself and he hates what a fool he has been.
So he decides to be brave for once in his life. At least this one time, he could finally do it after years of failed attempts. He touches the scars near his chest.
Maybe he can end it this time. He could end it all and never come back, after all he is so tired of all of this. Nothing has ever gone right for him, so he just wants it to stop. He just wants to sleep forever and never wake up.
He hopes it’s just like a dream. Maybe he could be happy there.
“If the next world is a dream, then I hope I won’t be such a mistake there.”
Ogier says softly, tears still flowing down his cheeks.
With this, maybe he could at least free this one person from his grasp.
He looks at the person he has bound to him. A person he has burdened with his being. A stranger he hoped would find him worthwhile to be with, a friend. But he was stupid. He doesn’t want to be a burden anymore.
Suddenly his new rat friend was stirring awake. He dropped the stone sword to the floor in shock, shattering it’s hilt preventing it from being wielded.
Ogier rushed to his side. By some unconscious reaction, he ran towards the ratkin. He kneeled and supported him up.
The ratkin coughed itself awake
“Are you alright?! Do you need water? Umm do you need any help?” Ogier asked.
The ratkin hyperventilated, before trying to calm itself down by taking in measured breaths.
The ratkin opened his eyes, only to reveal tears falling from his eyes.