Dennis was checking on the life support. Ever since Judith burned away Charles’ prison, the roach kin was screaming non-stop, literally. With all the scans he did on him, it showed that the man’s mind and soul are overloaded with information, as if thousands of years worth of information was crammed into Charles all at once. He tried reviving him with the boon he got, but it seems like he still carries a wound. He tried re-routing the memories using the fancy “Save point Crystals” he borrowed, but the thing grew black and exploded into a million sharp, tiny, really sharp I’m not kidding shards. He even tried carving out the excess data and compressing the ego of Charles, like taking out a really really fat tumor, but it’s like the excess data kept following Charles around regardless.
He needs help from people in specialized fields, namely a bunch of his graduated apprentices. He always kept his disguise around a majority of the people he met, envoys of different leaders, his citizens, and kids who kept asking really inappropriate questions. His apprentices were of the last category, always going on and on about his private life.
Master, do you have a wife?
Master, when are you going to get married?
Master, are you a virgin?
Master, what’s your body count?
Really inappropriate stuff. Of course Dennis had no other option but to lie. He always used a really intimidating solid shadow cloak that covered him, slightly extending his limbs, making his tail a tad bit longer, and slightly sharpening the features of his snout that pokes out of his hood. He even made the floating, glowing ice crown because someone said it was cool once. He sometimes wishes he looked like the disguise he has in real life, maybe people wouldn’t look down on him. Unfortunately, his real life visage was always called the emperor’s servant, vassal, or errand boy. No amount of animancy could change the way he reforms every time he dies.
After years of being called someone else, he slowly lost all confidence in himself. Making a persona that Dennis deeply yearns to be.
He dawns the shadowy facsimile of “the lich of the creeping cold” and discards the image of “Dennis the errand boy”.
He looked at Charles laying in a stone table, twitching with tubes attached in every orifice. He knows his friend will get better. Dennis clinging to hope, injected another dose of stabilizers to his friend’s body. Immediately, the twitching stopped. Dennis let go of a breath he was holding.
Now he just needed to wait for the specialists to arrive. Dennis was never an expert when it came to mind and soul linking stuff, he was more of the revive and hope it works out alright type of necromancer. He was more suited to killing, not containing stuff like Wyatt, or molding things like Judith. Honestly, animancy is a pretty new field. It’s only been around a few decades since it was founded.
Dennis grabbed a chair and placed it near the table and sat just behind the stone slab.
Funny, it almost looked like a sacrificial altar surrounded by shadowy creeping plants. The roots and branches swarming the periphery like a bunch of tentacles about to grab Charles and tear him apart.
Charles starts squirming again, violently this time. Fortunately, he was sealed in place by Wyatt. He prepared another dose of stabilizers, that looked like freaky glowing syringes. He never learned telekinetic spells so he had to do it the hard way.
He summoned three sets of skeletal hands piercing the roach kins’ incredibly tough chitin, after the last area he inserted the tube in healed off.
Darn it Charles, you just had to delve into life magecraft. Life mages are infamous for always having passive spells that healed them. It looked like he was stabbing Charles in the chest, when in reality it barely pierced the surface.
Dennis pushed the syringe with all his might, cursing his scrawny strength.
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Judith was walking nonchalantly, smirking at the looks made by the cute little kids trailing close to her. To her, they might as well be children. She’s a really really old monster as far as she’s concerned. Just looking at these bright eyed children be specialists in fields that weren’t even around when she was still hunting down concept beasts made her giddy at the thought of new stuff she could learn. Maybe she could make a new dao or something.
Some of the ratlings were even a little fruity, someone who was in the wrong body and another was really finding themselves out. Honestly she was from earth, so she knew how hard the folks back there had it. She died in 2008 from lynching after being dumped by her ex-girlfriend/ex-bestfriend who ratted her out after all they’ve been through. She was used as a scapegoat and still had baggage from that time. She used to promise her that they’d run away one day, somewhere no one else could see them. Unfortunately, that’s where it all ended.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
At least she found a way to survive in this world as an open fruit bowl, accepted by a bunch of people who she valued a lot. She probably should find out where her other friends and family were, knowing them they’re probably still around. She should probably go on a journey after the reincarnation thing Dennis is doing finishes. Apparently it’s kinda like a pooled save point making everyone involve be the save point. So she could at least be safe from a few things. After they bring the gang back together, she should probably find out what happened to her sect.
Judith spread out her senses and stepped her foot down non-space in between the floors of the towered dungeon/mausoleum. Honestly she was impressed, it’s got Wyatt written all over it. She was certain that the place would keep anyone here, except maybe her.
If she tried really really hard she could probably turn everything upside down. That is if Wyatt wasn’t here.
She pokes her finger in the non-euclidean super-imposed levels of infinite space and draws a line. The tower does something that surprises everyone except her and the batkin.
The space bleeds.
It bleeds burning ichor, the very substance of creation itself. Everything around her obeys this. It, the tower, fears her. A creature so alien to even the most dedicated scholars is merely another animal meant to be hunted down. A flash of primordial glowing set of words, the very phrases that dictate the rules of the tower were bleeding. It oozes emotion and memories only by her presence next to the wound.
She smirks.
All things bleed.
This after all is true. All life and non-life bleeds something. All Gods and heroes lose something. A wound is a beautiful thing, it shows what a being truly is. A vulnerable, fallible, terrified beast.
All things bleed.
A moment bleeds into another, then into another, then another. Memories spill and seep into the information of the world. Subconsciousness bleeds into thought, that thought bleeds to action, and all action bleeds to effect. Even after all these years, she’s still the same.
She was Giddy with delight. She felt the rapturous blood of the manifestation of Destiny, a God. She was there of course, she made the very concepts many struggle against bleed. They fear her, they sacrificed so much to seal her here. Yet she’s back, her mind filled with ecstasy at the potential chaos stirring around her. She loves her companions, her family, her friends. They just understood her, no amount of power was worth such beautiful chaos.
She’s here again, ready to see heroes fall into despair, for Gods to lose everything, for entire civilizations to write another boogeyman for babes fear. She might have despaired when she came to this world, battered, bruised, and betrayed. But she would do it all over again.
She’s alive. Her eyes roll back in horrific glee.
Another pantheon of Gods will bleed, and she’s unstoppable thanks to his rat kin friend. Kindred companions fated to bring the downfall of men. Their name is written into the chapters again, just like before, when the chaos of the world blended tragedy after tragedy in a desperate bid for control. Just like before.
Another set of heroes destined for downfall as the old kings and queens lose everything. Just like before.
The cage of worlds will see the fires of heaven again. Like the good old days.
She summoned flame from her hand, a promise of immolation and despair. She traced the indents of the wound in space and cauterized it. She smiled at the tower, it’s eyes everywhere. True she can’t break it, she can’t even fathom to break it because it was made by Wyatt. But it was frightened by her, and that was enough.
Just like the good old days
She wasn’t always so cruel, or twisted, or malicious. In another time she was kind, hopeful, and filled with love. That was until she knew what she really was.
She was meant to be a hero, prophecized to bring a new age, to become it’s queen and ruler. And with the heavy crown upon her head, lose the ones who made the struggle worth it.
To the people she was grateful to, her friends, they found something. She was a protagonist that carried a story in her very being. It was dubbed a protagonist factor or agony factor, named as a joke by his friends. They couldn’t have been more on the point.
Throughout all of history protagonists all have a similarity, they attract agony, pain itself, trials and tribulations and it would shape them regardless of what they become. The factor may range from multiple different sources and it would bring tragedy or wealth, yet it is not recommended to acquire such a thing. This is because, if any being becomes a protagonist, they will slowly lose control of their fate and subject themselves to beings that dictate their story.
Yet not all hope is lost when one is subjected to such a thing, one may either spread the weight of the story or force the story itself to end. They would become a singularity of tragedy and pain if they choose to bear the weight of the words on the pages.
Judith has done such a thing, something that truly makes her free. If there is a story, she may chose to simply bleed the memory of it’s presence and it will no longer exist in the pages of destiny.
She can bleed the story out of the script, and it is a terrifying thing.
No one can fully know her history now but the people involved with her, something she appreciates greatly. And she would keep it that way. No one else should suffer for her just because it would allow her to change. Tragedies should not happen just because of some fickle author of fate decided that it would be amusing.
She is free now and no one would take it away from her, no soothsayer or diviner would trap her in their visions. She would burn it all away.
Just like the good old days