I slumped down next to the door. Mintuk leapt from my back to the floor of the castle. He put his hand over my stomach wound. There was a grimace on his face as though he was never going to do this if I did not host his father Xoris.
Within a minute the big wound had healed and no pain was left. Mintuk was a superior healer to Lia by all means. All the same I would have been happier to be healed by Lia whom I loved than the evil Mintuk who had kidnapped Rozy.
The pain gone I was able to take in the castle. The inside of the castle was as lustre-less as the outside, despite its massive size. There were few decorations and the castle felt bare.
As per Xoris’s orders I turned into a human.
“Now let’s start the exploration,” Xoris declared to me. However at that moment a fuzzy feeling took hold of me, even as a notification popped up in my vision.
Congratulations!
You have successfully entered a forbidden castle belonging to gods!
You level up!
You receive a new spell: Merge
You can now merge certain objects with yourself and used them as if they are a part of you. Note that this spell does not require the expenditure of any mana and you can remain in the merged form for as long as you want to.
“Aha!” Xoris said to me, “Now that’s a spell that should come handy! I am glad that I have retained the ability to see the notifications and the messages that you receive. I have been observing recently that you are being keen to do all things that I ask you to. I had expected more resistance from your part. If you are simply being obedient because you fear the pain, then it’s okay. However, if you are being obedient because of other reasons then know that even though I cannot know what you are thinking I can still know what you are thinking.”
Okay, maybe my earlier reasoning that I could win Xoris’s trust by being obedient was backfiring on me.
“Look,” I said to Xoris, “do you want me to obey your commands or do you not want me to obey your commands? Ultimately it’s up to me whether I do as you say or not, but at the same time I have no desire to be subjected to pain that I can avoid by following your orders.”
Xoris was silent for a moment, and I hoped that that should stop him from thinking I was planning stuff against him. Then he ordered me to go about exploring the castle. Mintuk wanted to explore the castle on his own, but Xoris ordered him to stick with me because there could be hidden dangers in the castle. The castle at the end of the day was a castle of the gods.
We went away from the main door of the castle. We heard banging on the door from the outside but the strong door did not allow any of the three giant gods or the warriors to get in.
Mintuk and I went from one hallway to the other. We saw a number of small rooms that I reckoned were the quarters of the warriors. Strangely enough, we never came across any servants or any place which could be the staying place of servants. I reckoned that the warriors were all that the three gods had.
We went upstairs and we came across three massive chambers, which I believed belonged to the three gods. The chambers were all untidy inside. The bed sheets looked like they hadn’t been washed for months and the floor had enough dust that our footprints were clearly visible. At several corners of the chambers there were spider webs. The hallway outside of the chambers had been relatively cleaner. I reckoned that even though the warriors cleaned the hallways, they weren’t allowed to clean the chambers of the gods.
We kept moving. After some time my stomach began to grumble and I couldn’t help but eat the carrot that I hung around my neck. I observed Mintuk looking intently at the painting of the gods on the walls, and it struck me that Mintuk hadn’t eaten a bite of anything ever since Xoris and I had met him. Perhaps Mintuk was advanced enough in sorcery that he could keep living without requiring to eat anything.
It was in the second floor of the castle, above the floor containing the chambers of the gods, that we found a corridor in which there were a number of rooms bearing name plates like “Season Control”, “Communicate other Gods”, “Floods”, “Earthquakes”, “Drought”, “Animal Control”, “Plant Control” and “Lightning”. I observed that all the rooms were locked except the Lightning room. That particular room was simply bolted. Maybe the gods had used the room in the recent past and forgotten to lock it which wouldn’t be a surprise owning to the carelessness of the gods.
“Get inside that room,” an excited Xoris told me. Mintuk and I moved to the Lightning room. Mintuk unbolted the door and peered inside. I could see the glow of light inside the room. Mintuk opened the door widely and both of us stepped into the room. There was a flame inside a conical glass device which was the source behind the illumination.
At the centre of the room there was a large table with three large chairs, perfect for the gods but way too big for me in my human form. There were quills, ink pots and a number of papers littered about the table. However, it was the strange device beside the large table that truly caught my attention. The device was shaped as a lightning bolt attached to a box at the bottom. In the box there was a slot where a paper had been partially inserted. Certain numbers were written on the piece of paper. Mintuk bent near the box and began to read the part of the paper that was outside of the slot. I meanwhile observed the room. It was very bare. There were a few empty rum bottles in one corner of the room. The windows of the room were closed.
I found a slim, leather bound book on the table that had earlier missed my eyes. I opened the book and flipped through the few pages it had. There were hand drawn illustrations of the lightning device in the book. There were also what looked like numbered illustrations which seemed to tell how to operate the lightning device. However the instructions were written in a strange language that I did not understand. It was only the numbers that I understood.
“Too bad I was never interested in learning the alphabets of the gods,” Xoris said to me.
“So this book is useless to you?” I asked to him. “And you cannot use the device?”
Inwardly I wouldn’t be very sad even if Xoris was unable to use the device, despite all the effort it had taken to come here. I was well aware that Xoris would misuse the device to make himself more powerful. He might end up killing innocent people with it.
“Give the book to my son, he might be able to make some sense out of it,” Xoris said. I gave the book to Mintuk. He went through the book with a hard frown of concentration pasted on his face. Even if he did know the alphabets of the gods I doubted he knew it any well. After about twenty minutes Mintuk closed the book and gave it to me.
He pointed at a ‘3’ in the paper in the box that looked more like an ‘8’.
“You might remember that the last lightning storm was a bit too violent even by barbaric realm standards,” Mintuk said, “this might be why.”
“How do you get the device started?” Xoris asked through me.
“From what I gather from the book, it’s relatively simple,” Mintuk explained. “You just have to write down the strength of the lightning storm. There is a scale ranging from 1 to 10. And then you have to bend this in the direction that you want the lightning storm to occur,” he reached out his hand to the top of the lightning bolt instrument and was able to bend the tip of the lightning bolt in various directions, “and that’s all I could gather from the book. I believe there are other things that must be done to properly use the device, but we would have to find them out through trial and error. My understanding of the alphabets of the gods is limited as I never considered learning it a valuable investment of my time and it was more of a hobby.”
“My slave received a merging spell upon entering the castle,” Xoris said through me and it took me effort not to cringe at calling myself a slave while relaying Xoris’s words to Mintuk, “Do you think it will be possible to merge the lightning device with him?”
“I guess that can be done,” Mintuk said, “but what if that makes him too powerful and he attacks me?”
“Well, even if he is too powerful he can never attack me as I reside within him,” Xoris said, “as long as he cannot attack me, he cannot attack you. You can be assured of that.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Mintuk nodded staring at my face. I smiled at him, happy to see that Mintuk was concerned.
“Do not be afraid,” I said, “I won’t harm you. And this is myself speaking, not your father.”
Mintuk shrugged.
“Merge then,” he said. I wasn’t very sure how to go about the merging process. I simply placed my hand at the top of the lightning device, and then activated the Merge spell. Instantly a notification appeared in my vision.
Merging has been activated. It will be a minute before it is completed. Once something is merged with you, the merged object will appear as a new icon in your periphery vision and to use the object like a part of your body you must follow the directions that you receive once you open the icon.
As the seconds passed, I observed as the lightning device lost its solid form and became as though it was made of gas and slowly began to flow into my hand. A minute passed and the lightning device had completely merged with my hand and the colour of my forearm had changed such that it was very grey now with lines of brown, much like the top of the lightning bolt that was grey in colour and the base that had been made of wood and was brown.
A new icon shaped as a lightning bolt appeared in my vision, with the words “Lightning” written underneath it.
“Well, open that icon,” Xoris said so that I knew now that Xoris not only could see my notifications and messages but could also see the icons that were present in the periphery of my vision. I did as told and a pop up appeared in my vision, which for some reason kept blinking red and this I found rather distracting. There were three options in the pop up:
Shoot lightning bolt (you can control the strength of the lightning bolt by thinking a number in your mind that is anywhere from 0.1 to 10
Create lightning storm (you can create a lightning storm over a region and control the strength by thinking a number from 1 to 10
Create lightning clones (you can create lightning clones of yourself who will listen to your every command. You can control their strength, size and their destructive abilities by thinking a number from 1 to 10
Seeing the pop up one thing I understood was that I was very powerful with the lightning device merged with myself. If only Xoris was not controlling me…
“Try shooting a lightning bolt,” Xoris said, “and can you stop the pop up from blinking so much?”
“I can’t,” I said, “I’ll try the bolt. Will go with the lowest strength.”
I pointed the arm with which I had merged the lightning device at a spot in the wall. I selected the first option and thought of the lowest strength of 0.1.
What happened next was weird. The pop up in my vision became inverted and began to blink even more rapidly.
“What’s happening?” Xoris asked me, as though I had any clue. Next moment the old pop up was replaced by a new pop up.
Error! Error! Error!
Next, that pop up also disappeared and a third pop up appeared which also kept blinking rapidly.
You lightning clone of strength 3 and size 3 will be created in 3… 2…1…
I felt a massive rush of power inside me and the next moment a stream of electricity of such brightness shot out of my hand that I had to close my eyes. The massive rush of power ended. I was able to open my eyes and see a human composed completely of electricity that was exactly of my shape but was one-third my size.
A new notification appeared.
Congratulations! You have created a lightning clone. It will listen to your every command%#%#%Error! Error! The lightning clone will harm you.
Harm me?
Just then the clone in front of me opened its mouth of electricity and let out a blood curling high pitch sound that might as well have been a war cry and threw itself towards me. I leapt in a different direction, escaping it.
“What’s happening?” Xoris asked me. “Why did you create the clone? Do you want the pain?”
“Shut up! I didn’t create the clone!”
The clone raised its hand at me and a bolt of electricity shot out of it. I ducked just in time and heard an explosion on the wall behind me where the electricity had hit.
Mintuk looked from me to the clone. He was the one nearest to the door and he quickly ran out of it. Just then I felt the immense rush of power once again inside myself. In the matter of a few moments a new lightning clone of a similar size as the first one had been created. A notification appeared.
Congratulations! You have created a lightning clone. It will listen to your every command%#%#%Error! Error! The lightning clone will harm you.
Great! Two lightning clones, hell bent on harming me. As the two clones threw themselves towards me, I ran out of the room. Mintuk was already rushing down the staircase. He tripped on the staircase, fell face first and rolled all the way to the bottom of the staircase. But he picked himself up quickly and ran towards the next staircase that led to the ground floor.
I myself ran as fast as I could, the clones hot on my chase. I was running down the staircase, when once again I felt an immense rush of power inside me and a few moments later I had created a third clone.
“How do I stop this?” I asked Xoris, for he was the one who had asked me to merge with the lightning device.
“Aren’t you intentionally creating the clones?” Xoris asked, even as I focussed on running as fast as possible from the three clones chasing me and tried not to trip or fall, because that would be disastrous.
“Why would I want to kill myself?”
I reached the ground floor. Mintuk opened the great door of the castle. The moment he did that the giant gods and their warriors who had been pushing against the door from the outside fell inside the castle in a heap. Mintuk took his chance and made his way over them out of the castle.
But as I approached the castle door, once again I felt the rush of power within me. A fourth clone was created. The gods cried out seeing this. Obviously they were scared of the clones because they were composed entirely of lightning. The gods ran out of the castle, thinking that I was bringing the clones to attack them and so did the warriors.
I ran out of the castle myself, the gods and the warriors fleeing in front of me. There was no sign of Mintuk who was lost in the vegetation growing in the castle grounds. I took a turn and ran into the vegetation myself, hoping to escape the clones as well as the gods and the warriors. But just then once again I felt a massive rush of power inside me and a fifth clone formed.
Darn it! Was there no way to stop this?
I kept running. Inwardly I knew that I would only be able to run for so long. The clones would keep forming from me, each one as hell-bent on killing me as the others. There were times when bolts of electricity would shoot sideways or overhead of me and I needn’t be told that the clones still had their eyes fixed on me.
I produced a sixth clone and was so exhausted from the running that I just wanted to give myself up to the clone.
“Don’t stop moving your legs!” Xoris cried inside me in panic. He made a jolt of pain shoot up my spine and for once I was thankful for the pain, because it seemed to renew my energy and I could continue running from the clones.
And then from behind a tree Mintuk suddenly appeared.
“I think you merged the lightning device the wrong way!” he said. However he couldn’t complete his sentence when I produced a seventh clone. Mintuk ran away to save himself, but even as I fled from all the seven clones Mintuk’s words kept repeating in my head. The wrong way… Why didn’t I think of it earlier? So many times I had received the error messages!
The clones were some distance behind me, so I came to a halt and deactivated the merge spell.
The merge spell requires a minute to deactivate. Please wait.
Wait? I had not time to wait. The clones were closing in on me and I began to run again with the process of deactivation continuing. A minute passed and it was thankfully complete. The lightning device fell out of my hand. I came to a halt.
While deactivating the spell had stopped the clones from continuing to form, the seven clones were still there, and they would kill me if they could reach me. I needed to merge the lightning device with myself the right way. I would then be able to make clones that would actually listen to my commands instead of trying to kill me. Mintuk appeared once again from behind a tree a few metres away. He cast a glance at the clones in the distance.
“Try merging the device the opposite way to how you merged with it the last time!” he said.
The opposite way?
Just then a bolt of electricity hit a branch of a tree just a couple of feet beside me, and this was followed by the blood curling cries of the clones. A shiver caught hold of me. If I did not merge the device with myself the proper way then I would die. Forget ever seeing any of my wives or ever going back to my kingdom.
The last time I had touched the top of the device when I had merged it with myself. I reckoned if I touched the bottom of the device then it would be the ‘opposite way’ suggested by Mintuk. I touched the lower part of the device and then activated the merging spell.
In a minute the device had merged with me. All the while there were explosions all about the place where I was. The clones were continuing to throw their lightning bolts even as they ran towards me. It was by pure luck that I hadn’t been hit till now. I opened the ‘Lightning’ icon from my peripheral vision. Next moment the pop up appeared with the three options of shooting a bolt, of creating a lightning storm and of creating clones. This time the pop up was not blinking red like the last time.
I selected the first option, changing my decision in the flash of a second from creating new clones to using the lightning bolts. I leapt sideways for the clones had reached me. A strange sense of calm had come over me in the perilous situation, and I was not allowing fear and panic to force me to make any move that could cost me my life. I pointed my hand at the clone closest to me and then fired the lightning bolt, keeping the strength at five.
A massive bolt of electricity shot out from my hand and struck the clone and the next moment there was no sign of the clone. I shot bolts of electricity at the remaining six clones, striking them off from existence and then I fell onto the ground in a heap. All the exhaustion from the running hit me at once, and for some time all I did was breathe.
“Well done,” Xoris said to me inside my head.
“Shut up,” I told him. I no longer cared of winning his trust. Mintuk appeared from his hiding spot. His eyes were fixed on my hand. There was thirst in his eyes of the kind that I had never seen in anybody. I was well aware that Mintuk was ready to sacrifice an arm and a leg if only he could have the ability to shoot massive electricity bolts from his hand.
General Information
Name: Rabbi
Class: King
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Level: Thirty-one
Strength: 949
Health: 1149
Spells: Listen, Rabbit, Monsterification, Merge
Weapons: Sword