Redmane stared at a huge portrait of Sencis Karalis, the First of His Name, King of the Stahlmen and the Omeni and the Tribes of Volos.

He saw a resemblance.

Their faces were identical, save a few important details. First, the King didn’t have canines like daggers. Nor were his ears pointed. Karalis’s eyes were a vivid shade of green, and his hair was as gold as new wheat. But if you were to stand Redmane next to this man, most would say they looked like twins.

Pietr walked up beside him, the two of them still standing in the great hall of the half-eaten castle. “I can’t fathom what it must feel like to discover one’s past in such a way,” he said.

Redmane didn’t look at him. His eyes remained fixed on the portrait.

“I have no recollection of this man. He is a stranger.”

Pietr’s smile waned, and he nodded. “Alas. What was done to you cannot be undone. But there is more here to see.”

Redmane let the priest lead him out of the castle, up the slope of the crater housing it, and back onto the endless plain of blood-slicked body parts. It appeared they were going on another long walk across the corpse field.

“It took a whole host of warriors to stop you,” said Pietr. “In the end, the battle was won by the efforts of a band of usurpers whom the Volosi called the Five Heroes. You’ll forgive me if I do not hold them in high esteem. The Five were tribal chieftans who became Knights under the rule of the Stahlmen, traitors to their own kin, and yet they dreamed of advancing higher still.”

Redmane listened to the priest, and asked no questions.

He was turning the information over and over in his mind, like a stone in his hand. Getting used to the missing pieces of the puzzle sitting flush with the rest, after so long.

He’d thought it would have had more of an impact on him, but it didn’t.

He was once a King. Sencis Karalis.

A witch ensnared him in a curse, for the sake of revenge.

He became a monster. An all-devouring force. Kraal.

And then he fell.

In falling, the victors stripped everything away from him. Memories. Power. All but the bit they couldn’t destroy with the arts they possessed.

This body.

In retrospect, it could have been worse.

They could have shackled him to a rock at the bottom of a lake.

But then someone might have chanced upon him. Or the ‘Cult of Kraal’ might have learned his location and sent someone to his rescue. Better for the victors to have watchful eyes upon him all the time.

Better to chastise the villain by hand, over and over again, even though they shrived away the memory of his transgressions.

Redmane considered that. They took away his memories. Then they tortured him afterward.

Removing one’s memories was the same as execution, as far as Redmane was concerned.

Whoever that person was, they were gone.

So why inflict more pain?

Perhaps it was the same reason Karalis was transformed into Kraal. The same reason Aric Morholt would come down to the kitchen to give ‘Little Redcap’ a beating when he was a boy, just after he’d received one from his cousins.

Because the beast in the heart of every man was compelled to prey on lesser beasts.

The one who inflicts pain, who excites fear, he compels his victims to find another to injure and intimidate.

To recover one’s pride, maybe. Or simply to express one’s anger. To get it out.

Creating monster after monster.

Redmane looked up at Pietr, who was still talking.

“—That’s when they released your daughters and—“

“Why are you showing me all this,” said Redmane, cutting Pietr off.

The priest stopped walking. From behind, Redmane could see a sliver of his profile. He was smiling in an odd way. Sardonic, perhaps. Or self-mocking.

There was a long pause before Pietr answered. “Tell me… You spent a long time imprisoned by the Morholts, did you not?”

Redmane nodded.

“And what did it feel like to be freed?”

“Exhilarating. Energizing. Like being born anew.”

“Consider those feelings,” said Pietr. “And then consider this. You are still imprisoned.”

Redmane’s brows furrowed.

“The Five Heroes. Braga. Belskaya. Danesti. Vasarab. Holt. They didn’t simply steal the contents of your mind. They took you apart. The body you dwell within, the mind you possess, it is merely one fifth of your true self.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” said Redmane.

Pietr turned to face Redmane. There was a strange quality to his smile, it didn’t reach his eyes. Those were full of zeal, perhaps. Or simply pain.

“Because I have faith that Kraal will set everything right,” he said. “That when you are truly free, you will complete your divine work. And we all shall exist as one.”

“You mean, after I become your devourer god and eat everything.”

Pietr chuckled darkly. “Yes…”

Redmane studied the priest for a moment.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The man was a stranger to him, but he wasn’t.

He knew the pain in those eyes. The pain of a victim.

Redmane had been a victim too. Before that, he created victims. That’s what all the evidence indicated, at least.

“And what if I chose to do something other than eat all of creation,” said Redmane.

The priest’s smile became sardonic again. “You speak as if you understood the nature of your true self.”

“My true self stands before you,” said Redmane.

Another laugh. “You’ll understand in time.”

“I understand already. You wish for the return of a thing from long ago, a terrible thing which nearly consumed the world. But I have no wish to become a mindless destroyer.”

“Then what do you wish for?” asked Pietr.

The question gave him pause.

He wished for greater power. Even now he could feel the heat of his hunger for it. Not simply physical strength but wealth, dominion over the land.

He wished to hunt. To stalk, chase, fight and slay and feast and rest.

He wished to sire children. Teach them, shepherd them, protect them from danger until they were strong enough to fend for themselves.

He wished for a domain, a home for himself and his family.

All these wishes were built upon the first. Power. The power to fight, to win, and to defend those winnings.

“All fine things,” said the priest. “Things your foes will deny you at every turn, unless you possess the power to crush them. The moment they realize you’ve slipped their leash, they will come for you.”

“How did you—“

“I already told you, our minds are joined in this place. You wish for greater power? It lies before us. Just a bit further.”

Redmane’s eyebrow rose. Pietr grinned. And in lieu of an explanation, the priest turned and continued leading him across the field of gore.

After a while, a peculiar monument came into view in the distance. A circle of gargantuan bones, stuck into the ground to function as columns. The bones were covered in glowing magic runes, and within the circle there hovered a roiling ball of red energy which pulsed like a heart, and crackled like lightning.

“The First Seal was most cleverly hidden,” said Pietr.

Redmane looked at him.

The priest turned and tapped him on the temple. “Within you. In your Soulspace.”

“Never heard of such a thing until today,” said Redmane.

“Yes, well I imagine they didn’t let you read books on the arcane world and the nature of the divine in your captivity, did they.”

Redmane conceded the point with a shrug.

“So how do I break it,” he said.

“We must contend with its guardian,” said Pietr.

“We?” Redmane raised an eyebrow again. “I thought I told you already. I have no wish to become the terror you worship. Why would you help me.”

Pietr’s answering smile looked a bit deranged. But a bit less pained than the last one.

“Because I have faith.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

But ahead lay the next test. The next rung of the latter, and it appeared to be a significant one.

Redmane walked into the circle of giant bones, and the air shimmered and distorted around him as he passed, as if it were a membrane briefly stretching and then relaxing. Pietr followed behind him, the two of them approaching the center of the circle and the ball of flickering, flashing energy.

He reached out to touch it and something shocked his finger. An invisible cylinder of force, briefly revealing itself to repel his hand.

“It should be making an appearance any moment now,” said Pietr.

Redmane was about to ask him what ‘it’ was, but he didn’t have to.

It was emerging out of thin air next to them.

The thing had the face of a man, and a mane and beard of rust colored hair. It walked on all fours like a lion, and indeed it had a lion’s paws, but its tail resembled that of a scorpion, with a bulbous stinger at its end, and it sported a pair of massive draconic wings on its back. The creature was half again as tall as either of them, making its face more like a giant’s than a man’s.

Worse, when it opened its mouth to roar at Redmane and Pietr, it revealed three rows of jagged teeth like that of a shark. The roar went off like a bomb, loud enough to make his ears ring.

Ebsaklay the Manticore

Monster Type: Primordial

Level 65

Level 65. Potentially a problem.

Blessing of Might

Rockskin

Gnosis: 150

Perhaps that would help a bit.

Redmane felt power flood into his muscles. He felt his skin harden. His heart was already hammering against the inside of his ribs. If it were possible to break out into a sweat in such a state, he imagined he would have done so.

When the Manticore lunged at them, it was almost too fast to follow.

He had half a breath, barely longer than the blink of an eye to dodge away before a paw the size of his torso slammed down into the corpse pile. Then another came, and another, and a bite, and just when Redmane thought he’d leapt back to a safe distance its tail came stabbing at his face from nowhere.

But not nowhere. Simply hidden until the last instant.

The Manticore was clever. It concealed its deadliest weapon well.

But Redmane had tricks too.

Its tail darted at him again, and this time he answered with Flame Breath.

Gnosis: 130

The Manticore flinched from it, raised a forepaw to ward the fire away from its face. Redmane wasted no time. With a snarl in the back of his throat he streaked forward and savaged the Manticore’s raised leg with a flurry of claws.

He felt its tough hide resist. But it gave, and slash after slash sprayed blood across his face and its flank.

The Manticore leapt back, swept a claw at his face in return and he dipped under it and pursued. This time Redmane leapt onto the creature’s right shoulder, latching on with one claw and striking with the other, and the Manticore roared out and reared onto its hind legs, flailing to try and buck him off.

Its wings stretched out and flapped hard, buffeting him with a gust of air once, twice, and on the third try Redmane’s claws had dragged across the flesh of its shoulder, leaving four long clawmarks. But now his grip was shallower than it had been a moment ago.

The Manticore swatted him down with its left paw, sending him sprawling on the ground, only to roll and evade a killing bite.

Instead of Redmane, the creature got a mouthful of body parts from the ground, which it spat out with contempt, and then roared at him again, so loud he could almost see the cone of sound.

Redmane glanced around for Pietr, spotted him off to his right.

“Thought you said you’d help,” he said.

But Pietr did not answer. Evidently he was already helping. His eyes had rolled back in their sockets, and he held his arms aloft, chanting in that strange droning voice his cult had a habit of speaking in.

Quietude

The Manticore’s eyelids drooped. It made an unpleasant face, as if had a sour flavor in its mouth all of a sudden. It snapped at Redmane, roared again, surged forward with its claws scything through the air like ten swords striking at once.

But it was slower. Whatever Skill Pietr used appeared to have gave it a case of drowsiness. Like a bear before its long hibernation, sluggish and foul tempered.

It was already foul tempered, but ‘sluggish’ was an improvement.

Still, he had to watch himself.

He had a feeling one blow from that thing, especially from the stinger, could spell the end.

It struck again, lunging and snapping as if to bite him in half from the waist up. He hopped back and answered with a claw across its face, which it barely even tried to avoid.

He kept winning exchanges, but it didn’t seem to be adding up to anything.

The Manticore’s body collected claw marks all over, on its arms and shoulders, on its head, and still it fought at full power, full intensity. He used Flame Breath twice more, searing its hide and singing its mane, and again his efforts seemed to amount to nothing.

The fatigue Pietr imparted to it with his Skill seemed to be doing more than he was.

Even with all those stacks of Bleeding.

They would add up. They had to.

Level 65 couldn’t be that far ahead of where he was now.

The Manticore opened its maw and something glowed in the darkness of its throat. Something purple.

Venom Breath

Redmane dove away before a cone of violet Gnosis englufed him. A bit of it caught his foot, numbed it to the bone.

Best if he didn’t let that attack touch him either.

Redmane played things safe, as safe as he could get away with. The good news was that he could land claws frequently with the Manticore slowed, and he didn’t have to worry quite so much about the threat of that darting tail.

Until he did.

The Manticore played him for a fool.

It acted slower and a groggier than it actually was. It let him score blows, to give him confidence. To lull him into thinking he could stay close. All while waiting for one perfect moment, which it knew would come.

A moment when Redmane overextended himself. When he threw one too many claws, thinking he could still get away in time.

Redmane saw the tip of that venomous tail coming at full speed. His eyes grew wide.

He dove away. The tail missed by a hair, it barely grazed his side, and even then Redmane felt a powerful numbness take hold of his flesh there.

Unfortunately he’d been so focused on not getting stabbed that he didn’t notice he was dodging directly toward the downward swipe of its huge claw.

Blood sprayed the Manticore’s face.

Redmane hit the ground, face down.