The sound of chitin clacking on the wet, cold stone echoed through the underground Halls.
Every few corners he sped by, his metallic shell scratched against the walls. The screeching it produced didn’t even register, he was rushing madly to the Filtration Chamber #7.
It's always like that, he just gets so lost in his own thoughts, and in his little crab contest he so enjoys to play he always loses the track of time. Weeks go by before he is reminded of his work by some blaring alarms announcing to him he has, yet again, forgotten about something.
This time he could only hope for the mercy of Fate. Once his mind refocused he realized he got a lot of warnings about broken globes meant for repelling any energy and small monsters. That could mean something that could overpower it’s effects got into his terrain and is now wreaking havoc there. If that wasn’t enough his Stitched Flesh Puppet is not responding. Nothing on this level should be able to take it down. Even levels below nothing should be able to take care of the Golem. It may not be a battle creation but still it’s crushing power and range should be enough.
“Not good, not good.”
Just in case, he started charging his spells and armor, coalescing telekinetic points around his limbs to add extra speed and force.
Reaching the main corridor he scuttled down the stairs leading to Chamber #7. Leaping stairs by the dozen he started descending.
Every meter he got closer, he got even more anxious. The Puppet couldn’t even be felt this close. It’s spell array was dead or shattered so any hopes of it just loosing power were crashed.
The energies filling the space were distorted too, distorted unnaturally. Shaken, rabid and displaced. Too much electricity trapped in the air and stone, very unnatural for this place. His wards and arrays were also drained much more than they should, unevenly.
This could mean some Void Infested creature with it’s hold over electricity. It made no sense for it to be here but, then again, those things rarely had anything to do with sense or logic.
Pumping itself up, the crab man activated it’s Shell skills, making it harder than steel. It’s claws now powerful enough to crush stone into sand. He may be just a sewage caretaker but tens of years of taking care of the offspring of failed experiments of those above and naturally born mutants thought
him a thing or two how to take care of himself.
Closing to the bottom of the staircase he took a mighty leap, with his claws covering his torso, his human arms ready to smash and crush with telekinetic swipes. His whole body shining with metallic gleam and magical power.
In his own mind he looked mighty heroic. Pumped and ready for action all his limbs landed, crushing the stone under his significant weight. He turned to scour the room, immediately halting and dropping his claws with a thud into the ground.
What he saw baffled him.
His Stitched lay around, or was splattered around would be more accurate. It’s charred remains still steaming into the air, spread like a paste on a sandwich the chunks of bone poked through flabs of fat and skin. It looked like something huge clawed it in two, quite violently at that.
Next to it he could see… surprisingly, a someone, not something. But, oh boy, was that someone looking fucked up.
He looked baseline human, two arms, two legs, one head. Tattered scraps of black cloth was all that remained of a black T-shirt. Under it was a black and blue torso covered in scabs and fresh wounds. Indented and slowly seeping blood into the floor. His ripped jeans revealed legs with open skin, seeping foul poisoned blood that stimulated the Crab Mans senses.
*He must be poisoned, quite fresh but also quite intense. He must have absorbed a lot of poison in the sewers. Maybe he is some new generation who fell into the sewers and got lost?*
Just a second of checking his energy was enough to rule it out. His arms sprayed out in front of him were covered in Void Taint, pulsing with his weakened heart beat and disturbing the natural forces around him. By the force of its influence it was clear the influence of the Empty ran deep. The Void spreading through his neck and into the left eye must have flayed his mind.
Curiously, his core was still strong, not dissipated by the Void. That must mean his body still maintained control and the will to live.
“Weird, weird.”
Scuttling closer it was clear to see that the unfortunate man was in fact, the destroyer of his Puppet. His right arm was mangled like a crushed candy wrapper, skin on his fist burned to charcoal, peeking from it was his red and black flesh and pink sinews. Even with the Void so concentrated at the tips it was still regenerating, things looking stranger and stranger.
Insides of his creation covered the man, forming quite the pitiful sight.
Towering above him the creature bent down. Analyzing him with all his senses, intrigued by the broken toy that was washed ashore in his sewers.
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A revelation hit him. He has heard about Them. The Void Tainted that kept control. Those damned to the life of agony and True Death once they loose all will and the Void takes its claim over them. Memories of tales of maddened berserkers sent into the battlefield as cannon fodder resurfaced. The Old Wars, and those who managed to survive them all mentioned at least once some of them. Close range battle mages disrupting magic, battle formations and even Laws themselves. The most popular were the Howlers, he couldn’t recall their real name but the Howl of those Void consumed, and the fear of it was ingrained in every magic spawn born after the Old Wars. It was the Entropy calling into its domain. The anathema of life. Even the undead fell before their powers.
Shuddering a bit, determination filled his gaze. He closed his claw to the mans body, but was stopped by his curiosity. He could feel the remnants of the influence of one of the bloodlines from above. With a quick sniff he recognized the vile spawn.
“The fucking Atlantian scum.”
His carapace cracked with his anger, his armored limbs scratching as his body twisted in anger.
Going over his visitor once again he started noticing even more irregularities.
He had a small but quite intense reservoir of power. Completely uncontained and unrestrained. No marks of servitude, no marks of any families on him.
“Is it possible?...No, no, it has been years… but maybe?”
Even the loss of his puppet quickly faded into his memories. While an annoyance the sewers flushed enough cadavers to recreate it soon enough. This took precedence, this was much more interesting.
He had to learn more, what a joy it will be, a new source of entertainment.
First, he has to make sure that he will survive. From his memory those that Void bonded with so deeply don’t take well to any complex healing spells, their constitution twists the matrix of the spell and the results will be impossible to predict.
Stepping over the body he lowered his limbs and started poking him, first using his claws to inject some paralytic/anesthetic his body naturally produced.
Next he cast a cowl of energy that naturally enhanced growth and regeneration. He used it mostly for his little crabs and plants but it will be good enough for him.
Next, the pleasant part. The part where his human torso connected with the crab body opened where a slit cut from his navel to the bottom of the shell. Thousand of small, grayish pink tentacles ending with small teeth started skimming over his skin, eating away any dead flesh and poisoned tissue.
From his mouth extended longer, thicker versions of the same tentacles, forcibly injecting themselves into the unconscious man and feeding on all the physical and energy magical pollution that spread disease and poison in him.
“MMMmmmmm, quite the feast!” He said slurping.
It has bean years since the last time he had such a concentrated dish of such treats to himself. That level of filth would kill anything living so close to the surface. He would need to trek down into the lower, unmanaged regions of the sewers and that just wasn’t worth the risk.
The body started heating up, despite the paralytic the limbs twitched and moved weakly.
Chest rising steadily stronger with every next breath meant that the worst was taken care off. Still, it shouldn’t work quite so quickly. While feeding, he didn’t notice how the man latched onto his own energy through the healing spell. It was draining him quite forcefully by now, with every heart beat the mans skin got redder and hotter and his energy got pulled even stronger.
The maddened screams started, howls of a damned soul, panicked he hid his lower feeding organs and started pulling out his top ones trying not to shred his insides.
Just as quickly as they started they finished with an abrupt stop. As his feeding tubes left the mans body he shot from the floor, smashing his forehead against the chitin covered one of the crab man with a hollow thunk.
Both surprised and shocked he slurped his feeders, without any concern for social norms.
Both staring at each other blanky the little man addressed the huge crab monstrosity towering above him.
“Um, hello?” he said.
“Hello there” it answered with curiosity in it’s voice. He could see the terror in the eyes of his visitor, actually surprised by how well he is controlling it.
“Urmmmm…not to be rude but are you eating me right now”
“haha, kind of, I just ate the poisoned ichor and dead flesh in you. You are welcome.”
“Oh, thank you…are you going to eat the rest of me, Mister Crab Man?”
Bursting with laughter he answered: “No, no, young one, I will not, I am called Monsoon and…”
“Oh, good” the human interrupted him and immediately lost consciousness, his eyes rolling into his skull, slamming his head into the stone tiles he laid on.
At a loss of words, Monsoon the Granite Shelled could only laugh under his nose and pick his body up in his claws, slowly walking up the stairs and taking him to his abode.