The first door slid close behind you, locks clinking into place before the small enclosed area subjected you to the coldest air shower of your life, the temporary robe Plea had made for you burning away into nothing as it did so and the black stains on your skin vanishing without a trace. After the shower, a compartment on the blue wall opened up. In it was a green hoody with the Graystone Corporation logo on it—there weren’t any other options when you bought them wholesale—and gray sweatpants. The air-lock gave you a minute to dress up before the inner door unlocked itself, letting you into the sterile room.
The pungent smell of flesh, blood and chemicals coming out the other end was enough to make you cough. Steeling yourself, you went inside, eager to save Zeta before it was too late. Rapid blinks soothed your eyes after a flash from the too-bright lights of the room. The only sound that came from the OrganGens at the center was a constant buzz. Billion-dollar worker bees made entirely of Core-stone. Walking toward them and the half-formed man they surrounded, you laughed. Why did every single sophisticated equipment in the sea-damned safe-house produce some of the most insufferable sounds you’d ever heard? They hadn’t ever bothered you that much before your last jack-in, so why… Because for all of Oshveperthe’s faults, first among them being its association to Mattheus, you had fallen in love with it. Made it your home. And no sounds like these existed there, not unless you went to one of the Sky-Cities, the Techno-Guild’s estates or the Danjunai, but even they were less annoying—
Focus.
One machine focused on threading the chest, the second on threading the final touches on his head, while the last worked on exorcising the latest of the tumors, this time below the kneecap. Near-latest. Another was already forming just below the skin of the calf. You needed to act quick.
Facets empty of Techno-Mana, you sought after the mystic energy which most used to power their abilities. You found it in the Startrap; one of the paths Vocatian trod when they created all that was in the First Plane. The Path known for favoring regeneration in it’s God-Skills and Arch-Classes. Mending. The light green energy let you take it, knowing what you wanted it for. Knowing it could do what you wanted it to do, if you had the capabilities for the art. If your soul and your body were primed for it. The Healing God-Skill? It must’ve been. You hoped to the Prime-Walker above it was. The energy went into your Weight Facet, warming you with its grace. The mystic threshold of your Weight was vast. Untold millennia of ascension and leveling had made sure of it. But the God-Skill you sought to use was one you’d acquired recently. One you’d leveled only once since. The amount of energy it would take to use it once was a fraction of what your Weight or what your Body could contain. Therefore, you began to break down the Techno-Mana as soon as it started manifesting in your Eighth Facet. A far more stable version of it started to form. Energy Artifica. Body absorbing it like a sponge, you watched the buzzing Equipment mold your father. You watched them stave off the mutation. You watched them start to fall behind.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The little energy you’d broken down completed the transfer. Barely a drop in the bucket that was your body’s threshold. You took it, morphed it into the God-Skill, and aimed the formed Stormbolt at the Uplyfting Systemborne. The machines stopped buzzing. Backed away from the man. The too-bright light started to dim, flickering every few moments. His body began to mold itself, skin grafting itself on the remainder of his face, muscles and lungs fully forming in his chest, the swellings along his legs shrinking and shrinking till they were no more. You’d done it. You’d healed him. He fell onto the white, tiled floor. Glowing feet darting, you managed to catch him before his upper body took to the ground. His eyes started to open.
He gazed at you with quick blinking eyes. “Tolemvaria,” he said.
Heart beating as loud as the beeping ventilator, you said; “it’s me, Zeta. It’s me.”
He smiled, trembling hand going to your shoulder and gripping it. “What happened to your… to yo- Aaaaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!” He screamed.
Because of you. Tiny rivulets started to form on his face, and his chest and his legs, and his eyes. They burst apart, forming dents, leaking pus, damaging his cornea. He closed his eyes, hands moving to press against them. The Solemn-Body Mutation was contagious. The mutated almost always infected other people after turning. Every cell in your body begged you to run, to leave him and keep from the unstable merging of your Soul and Mind Facets. But you couldn’t leave him, this man you’d never expected to meet. The only worthy parent you’d ever had. The type of person you’d done your best to emulate for your own child. Your father. How could you leave him?
Where there was pus and dents, new rivulets started to grow, but these ones didn’t burst. They kept growing and growing, hardening as they ballooned. And he kept screaming, scratching at his face and his arms, leaving bloody marks in his own flesh as it continued to deform.
“What’s… happening?” He asked between screams of torment, trying to rise from the ground, but failing. Tossing himself this way and that, like a hooked fish pulled out of the water.
Trying to stop it, you made some more Energy Artifica, but it wouldn’t turn into a Healing Storm-bolt. It wanted to activate another God-Skill. One which could help. One which you didn’t have. You started to weep. Zeta’s skin was starting to glow. The soul. He didn’t have long, now. You didn’t have long. If you let him complete his transformation, hunters would take notice, some in the employ of Graystone Corp. The safe-house would be compromised. But, he was your father. You couldn’t kill him. Then what? Endanger the mission? Endanger your wife and the rest of the crew? Plea had already left. Would you survive losing the others too?
You slapped yourself. Think. How could you save him? What hadn’t you tried yet? Writhing on the floor, he continued to scream. Then, you realized, you knew someone who could help. A foe who’d lived far longer than you have in all your years before he’d ever even met you. Someone who could help heal him.
“QIATHUMARIEL!!!”