It was blinding, impossibly so, shining down as though the sun itself. The only thing most of them could make out was the twisted, vaguely bulbous shape, affixed to the cave ceiling by a black rod. A snaking, serpent-like tendril shot off from the main mass, wrapped around the rod, and it, too, shone with a blinding brightness. Two smaller rods protruded from the mass. Liquid flame poured from the rods’ ends, flowing down into the cathedral’s tower and proliferating from there.
Only Zefaris, if she closed her right eye, could truly see what that shape was. Everything other than it went dark as she focused her gaze and the Philosopher’s Eye adjusted its light-sensitivity… And the true, macabre nature of this second sun came into view.
An infant; the Black Rod ran through its heart, its own umbilical cord wrapped around its neck, coiled down its torso to bind its arms, and wrapped around the rod which ran it through. In the stead of eyes, it had two more, smaller Black Rods.
Macabre though this sight was, Zefaris had seen such things in the war and its aftermath; her focus was drawn by the rod itself, the ancient, lilac-pulsing glyphs which ran down each of its sides. Just a spark of will was enough to focus in, her field of view closing in on that ancient edifice, until Zefaris could finally make something out… Only, with the Dead God’s light flooding everything, she could not isolate the symbol properly.
The Dead God stirred in its eternal slumber. Its light died down, its form now resembling a dying ember, easily discernible by the naked eye, as the Black Rod itself lit up, a pulse of light running down its length and into the wall. Then, in the next moment, the light returned.
A searing, nigh incomprehensible ache forced Zefaris to close her left eye, lest her skull be split apart - or so it felt.
GAZE UPON MY WORKS, YE DEMIURGE, AND DESPAIR
FOR I AM MAN, AND I RECLAIM THAT WHICH YOU HAVE STOLEN
YE IMMORTAL, EMPYREAN TYRANT, YE WRETCHED DESPOT
I CONDEMN YE TO REST BENEATH THE EARTH FOR ALL TIME
WHERE NONE MIGHT BE BLINDED BY THINE RADIANCE
These words were seared into her brain, now and forever, and something else was lodged within her being alongside them. Zefaris could scarcely fathom what it was, only that it was there - some fragment of eldritch knowledge that her mind could not process yet, and so compartmentalized it the same way it had done with every horror of war which she had witnessed.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“You saw what the rod says, did you not?” Jorfr rumbled.
Still struggling to clear her head, Zefaris nodded, mumbling: “Gaze upon my works, ye demiurge, and despair…”
To her surprise, the borean continued: “...For I am man, and I reclaim that which you have stolen. Reading the thing yourself is certainly one way to confirm the old myths. Come on. Don’t want you getting double cataracts or somesuch.”
He began walking down the stairway and Victor followed, but Zef stayed behind for a few moments to capture the view as well as the Dead God, with Zel also remaining for the duration. The fact she’d paid for the fotoapparat with an immensely valuable piece of jewelry paid off in its ability to adjust its sensitivity much like her left eye or a particularly nice telescope. As such, she was able to actually capture the infant Sun God in full, rather than as a vague glowing lump. Catching up barely a third of the way down the stairway, they realized just how long a way down it was.
Motivated by some impish impulse, Zel retrieved one of the larger cleavers she’d bought at Fort 57, sitting on the stairs and using Fulgurkinesis to magnetize it to the bottoms of her boots. Before any of her compatriots could question her, she had hopped up and was rocketing down the stairway, trailing sparks.
“Of course she would…” Jorfr chuckled under his beard, only to double-take when he saw Victor forming a sled out of devilbone. He added: “...But you should perhaps reconsider.”
“I know the material properties of my devilbone well enough to trust it with shouldering a rotating detonation, this is nothing!” the redhead laughed as he hopped up onto the vaguely ovoid mass of bone and proceeded to follow in his mentor’s stead. Despite the trail of bone dust and chips in his wake, he was right about the sled holding up; in his eagerness, however, he failed to account for the need to stop once he got to the bottom.
Zef and Jorfr found him quite literally hung out to dry; Zel had made a small campfire and used the hood of his parka to hang him from a branch. The partially sanded-down bone sled was leaned up against the tree so he could reabsorb it later, and the trail of gouged earth leading into the river explained the rest, at least at a glance.
After a cursory look, and bearing an amused smile, the blonde looked between the two of them: “...You two set this up, didn’t you?”
Hopping up onto her feet, Zel gestured to the redhead: “C’mon, tell me to my face he doesn’t look like a rained-on cat.”
Though Zefaris stared her lover down, she didn’t speak out; much to the amazon’s smug sense of satisfaction with the farce, she just squinted at Zel and then turned her eye to Victor, commanding him: “Put that fire out and get down from there before you get burned.”
With a few gestures Vic pulled the small flame into a seething ball floating in his palm. A swing of his body was all it took for him to free himself, steam still rising from his skin and hair´as he grabbed his staff off his back and reused the flame, passing it through the central ring while gesturing with his left hand. It swirled about him, slowly shrinking as he visibly dried out. He released what was left, letting it dissipate.
“There.”
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Zel said.
“Flame Trick,” he shrugged. “It’s useful for things other than the thumb-lighter.”