The dveorg stared at Callan, and Callan stared back. Between them, shadows danced in the light of the flickering blue flame.
It was difficult to make out details about the strange little creature. He didn’t appear to be more than two feet tall, and while he had the normal number of arms and legs, they were stockier than Callan would have expected. In fact, the dveorg was almost as wide as he was tall—assuming it was a ‘he’, anyway. The facial features didn’t exactly give much away.
Their skin tone was difficult to make out in the flickering light. While it seemed like it might be darker than the lud, it wasn’t at all like dark skin back on Earth. It was more the color of hewn stone than anything terrestrial.
In fact, when Callan squinted, he realized even the texture was more akin to a craggy rock surface. Like the small man had been birthed by the earth itself.
After the silence dragged on for several minutes, Callan cleared his throat. “Uh, hi.”
“Ug-mun.” The creature raised its free hand and pointed at Callan. “Ug-mun.”
“Um... Xeph. Little help? Any idea what that means?”
I believe he is referring to us.
“Me?” Callan pointed at himself. “Am I an... ug-mun?”
“Yes. You ug-mun. You pris-on-er.”
Each word was drawn out and strangely staccato. Still, Callan had understood that last part well enough.
“I’m your prisoner?” He glanced around, but there wasn’t much to see past the light of the flickering flame. “Where are the others? Listen, I’m not here to cause trouble, but you’ve taken—”
“Pris-on-er no talk!” The dveorg smacked at the bars. “Pris-on-er do as told. You stay. You be-long to Ish-ka-plet now!”
Hmm. Is Ishkaplet the name of their tribe, or their chieftain? Xeph mused idly. Callan pulled a face.
“Yeah, sorry, that’s a hard no.” With a thought, he summoned Wurmchain. It would be the work of a few moments to cut through these bars. Then he’d see what information he could get out of the tiny man. Or not man. Whatever.
Alert: 3% Apotheosis used.
Total Apotheosis is at 12%
“Ug-mun pow-er!” the dveorg said in alarm. “Ug-mun priest!”
“Ug-mun an av-a-tar,” Callan said, drawing out the syllables like the dveorg. The little creature quivered visibly, then shoved its blue flame forward.
As soon as the flame touched the bars of the cage, it snuffed out. In its place, symbols burst to light along the bars. Callan realized that this must have been the rough etching he’d originally encountered in the dark. He’d never seen their like. The symbols were wholly alien to anything he’d encountered before.
His Wurmchain dissipated into a sulphureous cloud.
“What in the ding-dong fuck?” Callan stared at his empty hand. When he glanced up, the dveorg from before had disappeared.
“Xeph, what’s going on?”
I’m not certain, human. Though it like likely —— bar. We should ——— and ——.
“Uh...” Callan felt his throat tighten in sudden fear. “Want to try that again? You’re breaking up.”
— I —— Oh this is — problem ———.
You ———— immediately.
——— Callan! ——.
———.
Silence.
“Xeph? Xeph!” No matter what he tried, the god didn’t respond. Callan reached out and rattled the bars of his cage, but they were solid—incredibly so. When he tried flexing, not only did they not bend, but a few seconds of trying left him gasping for breath.
What in the world? He hadn’t felt this weak since...
Oh. Oh no.
Nonononononononononono...
Trying to contain his mounting panic, Callan summoned his stat screen. Or he tried to. Nothing happened.
Where was it? Even when quarantine protocols had been enacted, Callan hadn’t been separated from his stats. Only his powers.
I’m sure it’s fine. This is just a temporary measure. The dveorg can’t separate us permanently. No. I don’t—I won’t—believe it!
Yet as time stretched out, and Xeph didn’t return, Callan’s panic reached a fever pitch. He rattled the bars of the cage, screamed into the endless dark. Raged about his tiny space.
No one appeared. No one spoke.
He was alone.
“Xeph? Where are you? Answer me you cantankerous bastard!”
His raving echoed in the darkness, but there was no response.
Eventually he slumped against the bars, from utter exhaustion if not an actual end to his panic. His whole body was shivering. Had it been this cold when he’d entered the dveorg cave? He couldn’t remember. Aches and pains were spreading through him, too, starting in his legs and working their way upward.
Callan willed the pain to just be a figment of his imagination, but as it grew worse with every passing moment, he couldn’t just write it off as psychosomatic.
Xeph was gone. And without his intervention, without medications and treatments, Callan’s cancer was raging through him once again.
He could feel it like a tangible thing, slouching its way through his body, spreading its taint to every cell it could touch. Pain echoed through his legs, arms, chest, fingers, toes, ears, eyes, tongue, nose. He screamed an endless, raging scream. The cancer didn’t care. The cancer advanced.
He curled into a whimpering ball as his strength ebbed, and the poison spreading through him claimed his body completely.
----------------------------------------
They were hanging out in Callan’s room after school. This had been their routine every day for the last three weeks now, as Lyle tried to get him caught up on what exactly was going on in the MCU. They had progressed—though Callan was using that term loosely—far enough that Lyle was now having them watch several of the Sony films for some reason.
Currently, his friend was forcing him to sit through Spider-Man 2. The one with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst from 2004. Callan had nodded along as Lyle explained how this film would be important when they got to No Way Home, as if that was supposed to mean something.
It wasn’t a terrible film. Definitely not as bad as the version with What’s-his-name Garfield—which Callan had actually seen with his parents some years ago. He suspected his mother thought the actor was cute.
But the plot of this film was a bit difficult to follow. Multiple villains, lots of moping from the MC, and a weird subplot where Spider-Man lost his powers for some reason that was never fully explained to Callan’s satisfaction.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He commented as much to Lyle when they were done, who nodded along sagely.
“Yeah man, this is definitely the weakest film of the trilogy—” Trilogy? Oh boy, I bet I know what we’re watching next... “—And that whole deal with the losing powers always drives me mad. I mean, what is the point of giving a hero superpowers, only to take them away? Like, are the directors trying to say that Spider-Man is somehow still just as important and useful without the ability to stick to walls? It’s Spider-Man! Obviously he’s not the same!”
Callan frowned. “That wasn’t what I meant at all.”
“It always drives me crazy in stories when the main character gets nerfed like that!” Lyle either didn’t hear Callan, or more likely, was working himself up to another one of his rants and didn’t want to be interrupted. “Like, it’s nothing but lazy writing. If you’re going to give your character powers, don’t take those powers away just as a method to keep the story from advancing too fast. And then they bottle it all up with nonsense like ‘the hero’s true power lay inside of him all this time’ or something! Total bullshit.”
“Does it really matter?” Callan asked.
“Of course it matters! You think I read all of these power fantasy stories because I enjoy hearing about everyday people? If a character suddenly gets weaker, it makes them worse, not better. Nobody wants to hear that shit, man.”
The conversation lapsed after that as Lyle hunted for the next movie. Callan leaned back on the couch, trying not to dwell on what his friend had just said, but the words were hitting a little close to home when it came to another subject he’d been meaning to bring up for days now.
“I don’t think someone getting weak makes them worse,” he finally said. Lyle glanced up at him with a frown. “Like, it’s a thing that happens sometimes, you know? People get sick, or hurt. Weakness doesn’t change who they are inside, any more than having strength or superpowers does.”
“Man, you really defending that movie?”
“Not the movie. I’m talking about real life.” Callan drew in a deep breath, then said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. Do you remember how I missed all that school the last few weeks?”
Kyle didn’t respond. Something caught in Callan’s throat, but he swallowed it down and forged onward. “My parents took me to a doctor downtown, and—”
“You have cancer.” Lyle looked away and fiddled absentmindedly with the remote. “I know.”
“You do?”
“I mean, yeah, man. Aaron spilled the whole story. Apparently, he and Jamal already knew, they said you told them days ago. Kaylee, too.”
“Lyle, I—That wasn’t—”
Callan’s friend still refused to look at him. “I thought we were buds. Yet you told all of them before you said a word about it to me.”
We are buds, Callan thought, chagrined. You’re my best friend. That’s why I waited to tell you.
He didn’t say this out loud, however. Instead, he hung his head. “I wish I hadn’t. Told them, I mean.”
“Huh? Why?” Now Lyle was looking at him, a crease furrowing his brow. His whole demeanor changed in a moment.
“Because everyone’s been acting weird since I did. Aaron keeps avoiding me in the hall, and Kaylee hasn’t responded to any of my messages. It’s like they’re afraid my cancer is catching.”
He hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud. Hadn’t meant to even give that thought from the darkest recesses of his mind a voice.
Yet it had slipped out anyway. Now here it was. His worst fear made manifest.
“Man, fuck all of them,” Lyle said.
“Huh?” Callan blinked. The other boy shot him a grin, then tapped the remote. Another movie appeared on the screen.
“If somebody is going to start treating you like dirt just because you’re sick, they’re not worth your time in the first place. So I say, fuck them. I never liked Aaron anyway. Self-righteous prick who thinks he's better than everyone just because his dad's some hotshot at Microsoft." Lyle flipped a finger off at the window, as if Aaron might somehow sense it wherever he was.
Callan just stared at his friend. Then, he started to laugh. He couldn’t help it. The feeling bubbled up from inside of him and spilled out, until he was holding his sides from the pain of it. Lyle watched him with that wry smile of his.
“You know you’ve always got me, right?” he said when Callan’s laughter finally subsided.
“I know.” Callan wiped his eyes. A big grin had taken hold of his face and refused to leave. “Believe me, I know.”
“Good, because with a pal like me, who needs those losers? They’ll be kicking themselves when you beat this cancer and come back as the most popular kid in school. Just wait and see.”
“Sure. I look forward to it.” Callan turned back to the screen as Lyle hit the play button. Another movie started, but he could barely pay attention to what was happening. All the stress he’d been carrying these last few weeks was finally gone. It felt like a physical weight had been lifted from his chest.
Callan didn’t know what his future held, but suddenly he wasn’t worried about it any longer.
----------------------------------------
Awake.
Wavering darkness greeted Callan when he opened his eyes. He tried to sit up, but it hurt too badly to move. So he just lay there and waited as his eyes uncrossed and his surroundings slowly came into focus.
Had that been a dream about Lyle, or a memory? He couldn’t remember ever sitting down to watch Marvel movies with his friend, but the early days of his treatment were kind of hazy. It could have happened.
As his vision restored itself, he saw that his cage had been moved. Before, the blue light from the bars had illuminated little beyond natural caverns, but the space he was in now was much more open, and more intentionally shaped. Smooth walls formed a near-perfect circle around him, with his cage set at the center. A good fifteen feet of empty space lay in any given direction, the floor soft with sand.
With his head feeling a little better, he risked sitting up again. A wave of nausea coursed through him, but he didn’t pass out. His fingers gripped the bars tight to keep him in place.
“Hello?” he croaked. There was no answer. He appeared to still be alone.
“Xeph? Anybody?”
Silence. Both inside and out. Callan cursed under his breath, then louder when he remembered there was no one to hear him anyway.
This was not good. Whatever the bars were doing to keep the god locked away appeared to also be messing with his healing. While Callan didn’t feel as bad as when he’d passed out—honestly, half of that had seemed like some dream itself—his whole body was still shaky, and he could feel a fever burning through him. Sweat dripped from his forehead.
Just how long could he last like this? How quickly would his cancer kill him, without divine protection or modern medicine?
That was one question he’d never bothered to ask Doctor Martin. He wasn’t entirely sure if he regretted that decision or not. Sometimes ignorance was bliss.
A rumbling across the room drew his attention. Part of the circular peeled away, revealing a small passage beyond. Callan blinked, wondering if it had been a trick of his sick mind. For a second, the effect reminded him of his Shape Stone ability.
A dveorg emerged from the tunnel, turned, and closed the passage behind it via some method Callan couldn’t determine in the dim light. They approached his cage.
It wasn’t the same as the creature that had captured him. Where that one had been as wide as they were tall, this one was thinner, if only slightly, and had smoother features on their face, less rough stone and more like chiseled marble. Callan suspected this might be a girl.
“Ug-mun. You, eat.” The dveorg shoved a metal platter forward that had several goopy piles on it. Callan glanced at them, and then back at the dveorg. They waved their hands at him.
“Eat. Eat. Ug-mun stay strong. For Ish-ka-plet.”
“I’m not hungry,” Callan said. Which was true. His stomach was so riotous that this could have been the juiciest hamburger he’d ever seen and it still would have turned his stomach.
“Eat. Krov stay. Watch ug-mun. You no cause trou-ble for Krov.”
“I. Can’t. Eat.” Callan said, drawing each word out slowly. “I’m. Ve-ry. Sick.”
“Sick? Ug-mun sick?” the dveorg Krov frowned at him. “No, trick. You no sick.”
Callan couldn’t have timed what happened next better if he’d tried. He turned, looked at the plate of food next to him, and vomited on top of it. Little undigested bits of the emergency rations he’d had for breakfast mixed with the goop the dveorg had brought, making an utter mess of all of it. Then the smell hit his nose, and he vomited again.
He glanced back up at Krov, who visibly recoiled. “Sorry, I think there’s something wrong with this plate, could you bring me another?”
“Sick! Sick!” the little dveorg turned and fled into the dark. Callan waited a moment, but when she didn’t return, he scooted to the far side of his cage and lay down.
The dizziness was passing finally, but in its place were coming the aches again. It started as pins and needles, gradually ramping in intensity until he was gritting his teeth hard enough to nearly crack them.
Is this what dying of cancer feels like? he thought between waves of pain. No wonder we load people up on painkillers. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.
The shuffling of feet signaled Krov’s return. When Callan finally opened his eyes, he saw she wasn’t alone. The dveorg from before was with her, along with a third. This newcomer looked older, his skin visibly paler and more wrinkled. He leaned heavily on a staff of—Callan squinted to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks—some pure crystal. Like a diamond that stretched nearly two feet in length.
The older one leaned close, until their face was pressed against the bars, and studied Callan as he studied them in turn. Finally, they reached out and prodded him with their crystal staff.
“Knock it off,” Callan muttered. His voice was raspy. He thought about batting it away, but the effort was too much for him to bother.
“Hmm. Ug-mun no fak-ing.” The dveorg seemed to consider something a moment, then drew out a bag from within his robes. “Ug-mun weak. We make strong a-gain.”
Callan watched as the dveorg opened the bag, then proceeded to smear a foul-smelling substance on the bars of his cage. Within moments, the bars began to sizzle. Was that... acid?
It wasn’t enough to eat through the metal entirely, but everywhere the dveorg marked, the glowing runes faded away to nothing.
When almost half the runes were gone, the dveorg stopped. They nodded in satisfaction, then turned to the others. A hushed conversation took place to which Callan didn’t have the energy to try and listen. Eventually the two dveorg left, leaving Krov behind.
“Hey,” Callan said. The dveorg girl just stared back at him. “What’s going on?”
“You no talk, ug-mun. Rest. Get bet-ter. Chief say runes too strong. Now they weak-er. You rest. Need strength soon.”
“Sure, get stronger. I’ll get right on that, along with curing my cancer, and maybe bending these bars apart with my bare hands. Maybe then your chief... your....”
He trailed off. A distant buzzing noise was building in the back of his head.
Was that...? Callan almost didn’t dare hope.
The buzz grew in volume. Little chirps followed, like the auditory version of static shocks.
———.
— Had enough of this ———.
Listen, if you can hear —— then —.
Bah, why didn’t I insist he send a priest into that tunnel first? Or one of the older lud, they’re all expendable. Now we’ve gotten ourselves into this horrid—
“Xeph? Xeph!” Callan sat bolt upright.
Oh? It appears communication has been restored. Joy.
A wide grin split Callan’s face. “Boy, is it nice to hear a friendly voice.”
That makes one of us. Although I suppose it is good to know that you are utterly lost without my guidance and wisdom. Thanks to this little adventure, I’m certain you will appreciate my presence all the more in the future.
Also, yes, it is good to be back. Now, how about we see to the small matter of gaining our freedom?