Inside the Pantheistic Workshop

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Jun nearly jumped out of his skin when Goro’s rumbling baritone snapped him from his gawping.

“It would be best not to linger. More are sure to arrive soon,” he gestured at the door they’d just entered from. “If you will follow me, I can get you situated. Somewhere to train, away from prying eyes and unpredictable tempers. The sooner you work up a sweat, the sooner you’ll ward off the cold.”

For an awkward moment, Jun just stared at the bovine man, nearly too overwhelmed to speak, let alone comprehend his words. With a concerted effort, he mastered himself.

“Y-yes? Yes,” Jun’s teeth chattered. “Yes that would be very much appreciated. Thank you.”

Goro grunted. Jun shivered. And then the bovine man promptly led the way forward.

Jun hurried after him, not wishing to find himself alone amidst the peculiar press of bodies. As he passed, a dutiful little duckling practically tripping over the heels of his bovine mother, his fellow inmates glanced up from whatever it was they were doing, and, without fail, gave him a deeply suspicious and altogether unfriendly looking appraisal.

It was as if he’d insulted all of their collective mothers, pissed in their coffee that very morning, and, apparently, everyone was apprised of it but him. In other words, they were not the inviting, “I’m super open to engage in spontaneous conversation right now,” sort of looks, though Jun was too absorbed with the sheer novelty to wisely look away.

There was a thickset man, another giant, though perhaps a hand shorter than Goro, straddling a bench and doing bicep curls with a weight which, going by sheer size alone, had to have weighed at least a couple hundred pounds.

That alone wasn’t what caught his eye, however. Instead, it was the stone skin or, for all he knew, stone body the man possessed which shocked him to his core. Bare chested, the man looked the part of a granite statue come to life.

Chiseled musculature in the most literal sense of the word, with fault lines creasing the many places where one would expect a body to twist or bend.

Behind the stone man’s suddenly hostile glare, more of its… kind, for lack of a better word, congregated. Many lifting equally impossible weights, when they weren’t running headlong into one another, to, apparently, see whose skull could come apart the fastest.

It appeared to be a game of sorts.

A sport, he supposed, if a rudimentary one. He couldn’t make heads nor tales of the ruleset, exactly, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves well enough.

Guffawing, applauding, and stomping their feet with every concussive, brain rattling impact of stone on stone. Even the participants, somewhat dazed after each successive crack, were more pleased than nauseated afterward.

There was a woman with bone spines protruding from her body, spearing most prominently from her back, scalp, and forearms. He even spotted a few tiny splinters sprouting from the corners of her eyes.

As he watched, she proceeded to propel the spines in rapid succession, launching them from her forearms with the speed of an arrow, and the force of a javelin—the spiny barrage peppering a far off target with a rapid series of thumps.

To his left, a frog man—more frog than man really—made to bench press a long rod weighed down by thick iron chains. Gangly arms trembling, it’s too wide frog lips turning purple. Less due to the inherent strain, he suspected, so much as the metal bar that was slowly, but surely, cutting off his air ways.

Behind him, mutated men and women of all shapes and sizes pointed and snickered. Even its supposed spotters, who were in no particular hurry to administer aid, seemed to be having a good long laugh at his expense.

Abruptly, a gust of wind buffeted Jun, ripped into him, through him, even from behind the decidedly impressive windbreak that was Goro. Immediately after that there was a sharp snapping sound, the unmistakable scent of ozone, and a terrible shrieking that nearly overrode it all.

Soon the smell of burning hair accompanied the others. High above them, he caught the telltale silhouette of a person—tiny from his vantage—twitching, spiraling, crashing back to earth from where they’d, apparently, flown.

Having rocketed up towards the call of freedom when no one else was paying attention, only to discover, first hand, and somewhat traumatically, why the gaps in the rusty metal grating were so conspicuously wide. Wide enough for a person to slip through if they were careful, were it not for the flickering web of electricity that lay just beyond.

That was, even now, fading back into near invisibility.

The occasional blue flicker disturbing an overcast sky. There was a chorus of laughter, some cheers from the crowd, and a few whistles in dark appreciation of the valiant attempt. Eventually the woman disappeared behind a forest of craning heads.

Whereupon a couple of prison guards trudged over and proceeded to beat her mercilessly where she lay, even as she spasmed on the cold stone floor of the courtyard.

The cheers and catcalls never abated. They only grew more raucous, if anything.

Goro, perhaps wanting to shield his small charge from the grim sight, abruptly turned, shoving his way past the growing crowd. Parting them like the sea before the bow of a heavy merchantman or cargo hauler. They escaped the milling throng in short order, and once more it was all that he could do not to stare.

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In this way, inexplicable sights assailed him from every direction. Came and went far too quickly for him to fully appreciate. It was to the point that Jun wished Ivory was here with him, if only so that, with her special sight, he might sift through the whole of the scene more thoroughly.

He felt a sharp pang at that, a thread of constant worry, barely suppressed, rising to the surface.

It led him to think about what all he’d left behind, unfinished—what all was really at stake—and suddenly it was as if a scream were attempting to claw it’s way up and out of his throat. An impulse he had to struggle to tamp down on.

He shook himself. Given the cold, it wasn’t a hard thing to manage. No use thinking about that now, he told himself. Not when there was very little he could do about it, in any case. When he was able, he promised himself. He’d worry about it then.

For now…?

Jun’s mind suddenly cleared of distractions. The severity of his situation coming into sharp relief all at once. It wasn’t pleasant, this reminder, but it did set his priorities straight. It also had the effect of putting an immediate damper on the morbid fascination of only a few seconds ago.

No longer was he gawping, open mouthed, like some country bumpkin, so much as he studied his surroundings with renewed purpose. An infiltrator behind enemy lines. He was here to do a job, test a theory, and leave. In good conscience, he didn’t really have the time to waste on anything else.

And, as if in response to his newfound resolve, the guiding hand of the trial suddenly reared its ugly head, and gave him just such an opportunity. A scaly shoulder slammed into him, nearly bowling him over.

Indeed, if it weren’t for the generous bonuses his titles provided, it was likely he’d have come away from the collision with a good deal more than a rapidly darkening bruise—if he didn’t just go winging across the courtyard entirely.

“Fucking invalid…!” the snake man hissed, golden reptilian eyes flashing. “Why don’t you watch where you’re-!”

Shoulder check. Petty postering. Isn’t this a little too familiar? Don’t really fancy a repeat performance though, if I’m honest.

Staring up at the pale, sinuous creature, he confidently began whispering the rough words of his unfinished mantra. At this point, it was more mumbled intent than clear verse, but that shouldn’t really matter, right? I mean, if it wasn’t broke…?

He’d think up some proper verses later.

Swiftly identifying the true essence of the garbled words and half baked intent—or, to be more exact, the haphazard ripples they left in the ether—he remained utterly oblivious to the simple fact that what he’d just done was widely considered to be impossible.

Indeed, it was a feat made all the more impressive when one considered the unstable nature of the “mantra” in question. And here he’d done it in the time it took to blink. The equivalent of plucking a very specific chord out of an infinite number of strings after having only heard it once. Only, in this strange hypothetical, said chord would’ve also been in constant flux.

A direct consequence of its instability.

And if that much weren’t already implausible enough, what he did next was practically unheard of.

He harmonized with it in nearly the same instant.

A task that required he not only comprehend on an intrinsic level the primal forces involved, but to also, somehow, find a place of common ground therein. A profound tie that bound them in body, mind, and spirit. A task that was aided somewhat by the relatively shallow depths of the understandings involved, though it was no less impressive for all that.

Having recognized, then harmonized—in turn forming a stable bridge of similitude—all that was left was the third and final step. He allowed for the reality suffused in the etheric ripple to flow down the bridge he’d created, and into the readymade hollow maintained by his constant recitations.

His mantra, in other words.

Like a puzzle piece perfectly slotting itself into place, he felt the echoes of a higher reality fill him.

Effectively turning what had been mere words seconds prior, poorly articulated and hopelessly crude, into a definitive truth. A rough proposal barely reflected in the ether—like any other errant thought or idea casually uttered; here and then gone never to be seen again—into full blown reality.

Turning idea into substance.

Word into action.

Intent into reality with but an effort of will.

Willpower made manifest. Into a matter of cause and effect. While still the nature of said effect depended almost entirely on how flattering the idea in question.

Because it wasn’t enough to paint a picture successfully. Much also depended on the picture being painted—slated to be presented before a grand and fastidious assembly. After all, just because something can be, doesn’t mean it should be. And when the conceptual arbiters of such things hold greater sway over ether than anything else in existence, the margin for error can be very fine indeed.

Unfortunately for him, in this very specific instance, the Concept of Piercing was less than amused.

Custom Mantra: [Cool Shooty Laser Eyes]

Conceptual Stability: 3%

The snake man’s eyes widened.

Jun’s eyes glowed an emerald green.

Bright. Too bright. Far too bright.

There was an impact. A spike of alarm. Pain. Then nausea. A jerk of the head, sharp and aggressive—as if invisible someones had given his hair a good hard tug, leaving his skull feeling disconcertingly empty as a result—before the world itself dimmed. Went dark. Turned black. Until that blackness suffused him, and all was a blank, floating void.

A void which slowly brightened into a shifting gray mist.

Now insubstantial and weightless within that never ending cloud bank, only one thing stood out to him. A single detail to punctuate the unimpressive monotony. A screen. A purple screen, to be more exact. He ignored its contents for now, instead pulling up his trusty notepad with a thrill of excitement that was somewhat muted inside this place.

Attempt #9: Cool Shooty Laser Eyes (Failed).

Cause of Failure: I have no idea, but one thing’s for sure. It most certainly was not instantaneous death by explosion, identical, spontaneous, or otherwise.

If he’d had the lips to move in that moment, likely they’d have been split ear to ear—grinning like a madman.

Finally. Finally! Some progress at last!