K’tan-thar had dedicated the past decade of his life for the promise of assisted evolution and a path out of the dregs of the lower creeds.

Life hadn’t been kind to him. While others received useful names or quickly evolved away the bad ones, he’d been stuck with nothing but a half-dozen useless additives and a lousy evolution. The only option he had to reach the heights of those who rose because of some simple luck, was to take on this… foul job.

He’d never particularly disliked children, but after years of having to deal with their whining and neediness, it wore him down. Selling them off was never enjoyable. K’tan had watched them grow up after all. But most would understand his reasons once they joined a cult of their own, and found it impossible to progress while the lucky got everything.

Well, those that lived long enough.

K’tan was under no delusion of the nature of his work. Most of the low creeds would hate him, and the danger was high, but where else would he have found such an opportunity. The Fleshsmiths would promote him. They would assist his growth. They would protect him should anything go wrong.

Yet his cult had abandoned him.

The twisting tunnels curled around K’tan as he ran. It was far more corruption than he was comfortable, but he was desperate. All other options had disappeared with K’kali’s death.

He could read between the lines. The Fleshsmith Cult would usually do anything they could to pull him out — he’d met too many cultists that had experienced their grace to believe it was a ruse — but the Dark Star Event had changed things. Whether or not his superiors actually had anything to do with it, they couldn’t be seen with any relation. So… they scrubbed their connections. They killed K’kali. And they would do the same to K’tan.

A snarl tore across his face as he spun away from a tunnel with a too-dark shadow despite the light strip overhead. The body slung over his shoulder slid, but he quickly readjusted her.

His cult had abandoned him after all the effort he’d put in. It was aggravating. Why did the Dark Star have to appear where it did? What idiotic bastard initiated such a massive ritual there?

K’tan had tried to think of ways to use the knocked-out girl he carried as leverage. But he could only see those paths resulting in his death, and her being taken. Even if he managed to disappear, his superiors were likely already aware just how good of a prospective sacrifice she was; the onomastician was working for them, after all.

After all the years of effort he’d put into cultivating her towards something useful, he wasn’t about to let them simply take her. While she was still a risk, he knew her value.

If he was going to die anyway, then he might as well use Nix for the purpose she’d been raised.

Failure would result in death; either by explosive reversal, or to the cults. Success meant survival. If he could finally push his name to evolve, then he could twist it far from what it currently was. He could start anew without both the Fleshsmiths and Technocult wanting him dead.

As long as he kept out of the eye of any capable onomastician — and visited the Bodytwisters for some facial reconstruction — he could disappear.

Finally, K’tan reached the sacrificial chamber he’d been looking for. With the massively increased corruption level, it had taken him hours of navigating instead of a few minutes. It was one of the lesser known Fleshsmith sacrificial chambers that he’d discovered by chance.

Dumping the limp girl on the altar, he scrawled the activation rune in the bowl of sand raised on a pedestal. As soon as it was accepted, the rings of metal that made the altar began to spin beneath the girl, forming a pattern for the specified ritual. Behind K’tan, the heavy vault door closed. Metal sections twisted outwards, and in moments it became impossible to tell there was a door there at all.

Light faded from the normal white ceiling LEDs, and were replaced by the dim red glow flowing through the runes as the walls spiralled into the correct shape.

This was intended as a high risk ritual chamber, with thick walls that could hold in any unintentionally summoned threat, but for a sacrifice as suitable as Nix, it was unlikely to hold. If sacrificing her were to backfire the ritual — as he knew was likely, considering she’d been recovering from the curses eating at her body — it would incinerate everything in a hundred metre radius.

And that was before the accumulated curses decided to latch onto anyone even remotely related to the ritual. If he did die, then this would be good payback to his superiors.

Flicking a switch beside the altar, a set of shackles and chains clicked out of the ground. He clamped them around the girl’s legs before moving to her hands. Pulling off the girl’s gloves, he was met with quite the surprise.

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K’tan flicked her skin, only for a light clink to echo through the room. They were hard. Like stone or ceramic, yet far too thin to be gauntlets. He moved up her arms, and found soft skin returned at the mid-forearm, yet there was no seam. Her skin blended perfectly into the solid caricature of a hand.

At first, he thought the girl might have had her arms chopped off and replaced with those of a statue or mannequin. As soon as he touched her fingers, he knew that was wrong. They were hard, yet they moved like nothing was wrong. Barely perceptible breaks between plating allowed the digits an equal dexterity as any of flesh and blood.

Had the girl gone and given herself as an experiment to the Bodytwisters? Sure she’d been acting odd these past few days, but K’tan had tossed it up to a depressed reaction to her naming. She hadn’t spent enough time outside the ward for such an operation to occur.

No… this was too perfect of an adaptation to be one of the Bodytwisters’ work. Not only was there not a stitch, but the skin blended perfectly. It was like the girl had always had them.

K’tan’s eyes widened as he finally landed on the answer.

A cursed mutation? But wasn’t she far too healthy for that? Not to mention she didn’t seem to have lost her sanity, and he doubted they grew in only after he kidnapped her.

It was possible that curses could sometimes manifest as physical augments or mutations, but they always overwhelmed the host and twisted them into creatures that made amalgamations appear tame.

Far too dangerous for sacrifices, they were slaughtered before their changes could grow out of control.

But if she could control it, didn’t that make her a much better sacrifice than he originally thought? It was unlikely to change the risk of failure, yet the possible outcomes were looking even more attractive. Either the ritual failed, killing him and cursing the entire cult as punishment, or it worked, and he benefit from likely the most valuable sacrifice anyone had seen in decades.

He snapped the shackles closed and flicked a switch. The chains tugged into the ground, pulling the girl’s arms taut. She began to stir.

Would it even be a stretch to say he could be the next cult leader? The Fleshsmith Master.

K’tan’s eyes burned with desire as he began the hymn. The thousand runes twisted in response, bathing the chamber in crimson light.

❖❖❖

Nix jerked. Something was pulling on her arms and legs, and it was painfully tight. She awoke. Her eyes snapped open as her mind registered the low humming of a chant.

Everything was red.

That’s all she could see for a moment, until the alternating shapes of the ritual runes defined themselves in her vision. Through bleary eyes, she turned to the source of the hymn.

It took a while to actually process what she saw. Her body felt sluggish. Her arms weren’t doing what she wanted. But as soon as she recognised what she was seeing, her mind cleared instantly.

K’tan.

K’tan was performing a ritual.

She jerked her hands again, only to find them yanked back an instant later. Glancing down, she almost screamed.

She was strapped to an altar.

This was her worst nightmare come true. Her hands were out in the open, clear to the bastard besides her. She was going to be sacrificed again.

Her claws slid out without resistance and she snapped them down on the chains… only to find them impenetrable. Nix tried again, and again, only to never find success. She continued. Over and over in the hopes that she’d eventually grind through the metal.

“My, those look quite dangerous,” K’tan paused in his hymn to comment. “Very glad I took the time to strap you down.”

Nix glared and her touch snapped to ‘Oth’. She was so very close to tearing open her name and giving in to the mutations so that she could spit acid on the asshole’s face. But rationality kicked in before she could.

How could she have been so stupid? With how paranoid and nervous the man had become, she should have expected an extreme response. She should have expected he wouldn’t leave without her.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s nothing personal.” K’tan spoke as if Nix wasn’t currently strapped to an altar. His casual attitude was the same as when she was first sacrificed. “It’s not like you had a future besides this.”

She was tempted to unleash everything she had on him. Create another Dark Star. Rip open her mutations and tear into the man. Nix’s hate lapped at the fuel, and burned stronger than ever.

But she couldn’t give in. She needed to calm down, and think her way out of this.

“Why?” Nix asked, more to give herself more time than any desire to know. “Why this, and not sell me off?”

“Oh? You knew about that, did you? I figured the kids had caught on, but you were always… inattentive.”

She ignored the jab as she thought over her options. Another Dark Star Event… only if nothing else worked. Not only did she know what sort of casualties she would cause, but strapped to an altar as she was, she would be defenceless to the beasts within. To destroy these shackles, the only mutation that might work was her acid… and she was still a few changes away from that. If she opened ‘Oth’ enough to change her saliva, she would also be growing a few more limbs to go along with it. Not something she could hide.

“When your soul is swallowed by the black hole, don’t blame me for how perfect of a sacrifice you make.”

The hymn started up again, and it filled her ears. Runes flowed along the walls in anticipation of the ultimate conclusion. But there was something behind K’tan’s mad gaze that suddenly stood out to Nix. Desperation. Desire. A willingness to die that ignited the man to her senses. She could feel it all.

Nix’s Feat spun into activation, and she found herself holding his name without ever reaching for it. It quivered. The name held K’tan’s readiness for death. He had prepared himself for this sacrifice to end in the worst possible way, and Nix could feel that emotion flowing through his name and into her ethereal touch. Even if her eyes were closed and she was deaf, she would know where he was.

It was an interesting aspect of the Feat, but ultimately a pointless one.

With a deep breath, she truly acknowledged where she was. Things weren’t all bad. A sacrificial chamber away from any eyes. Considering her intent for the man circling her alter, it was like an invitation. She may not be in the most optimal position right now, but she had options. She had ‘Ine’.

K’tan had done her a favour and crafted the ritual of his own demise.

It was time to see what this thing in her sternum was. It was time to gamble.