Hymns echoed loudly down halls; the tunnels filled with slumbering Vails. Most of whom, had succumbed to the song of affection within seconds.
He’d ordered Bliss to be heavy handed with the dose, given he was near, and able to provide as much Mana needed to see the task done.
He watched her progress at the Gate linking the Outer and Inner tier. The act possible because of a Bliss at his side, which he was mentally gazing through; this achieved by another miracle brought about by the Mana.
Following his desire, a connection had been made, linking Blisses together, allowing him to see all they gazed upon. He witnessed the active tunnels become still, peace brought, and ending the common acts of violence. It wasn’t just Chanters who’d been battering Giftless aside to make room; the Giftless had been doing it to each other as well. They pushed, shoved, and when things really got bad, clawed at one another.
In a few months, the brutality within the tunnels would have become overly lethal. But he, and his children, had been doing everything they could to appease the masses; keep them mostly content.
A task that laid heavily on his shoulders and mind. It kept him focused as his harbingers of warmth traveled outward. There were hundreds of her now, a small swarm of comforting mothers to calm the masses, and protect them from the Curses they so feared.
“I knew the Outer-tier would have a greater number of them,” Dailin said to the Bliss by his side. “But this is beyond what I’d imagined.” His creations were finding dozens, perhaps over a hundred by now; Fear and Anger the most common. But they’d also come across entities using Worry, Envy, and the oddest, Laziness. All of them were trying to flee, But Blisses were catching them. In the same manner he’d ended those vile things, Blisses used Mana to dissolve them into nothing.
“Blessedly done all of you.” He sent into the collective mind that was Bliss, plus another wave of Mana to keep her strong enough to sing and fight. A visible act; the links connecting all the Blisses together, shined brightly as Mana traveled down them; then entered the backs of their flesh forms.
No matter how he demanded, the Mana had finally come upon a problem it could not solve to his expectations. While Bliss could be an invisible phantom—as the Curses were— this could not be maintained if he also wanted her to be able to store large amounts of Mana within her frame. The result, was Mana turning her once etheric body, into one perfectly mimicked in flesh and fabric. From there, Bliss’s new frame copied how his own body acted; she gained Channels, and began to grow in size.
With no other means to acquire his needed army, he’d accepted the limitation, and gained a host of identical women.
“Thank you Maker.” The Bliss near him said, posed proudly, a serine smile on her face. “I will not fail them, the poor Souls desperately need us.”
“What do you see within their minds?” Dailin asked. He’d given her the order to gaze upon the thoughts of the masses; to find problems, and any plans revolving around insurrection, or plots to start another war.
“I see,” Bliss spoke. “Wrongness, emptiness, Souls neglected and corrupt.” The creation opened her eyes, gazed into his own. “There’s, very little within them that could be called pure. They’re self-centered things, cold and cruel. Their thoughts an assembly of ideals counter to what you wish to bring.”
“So, there are those plotting to cause revolt?” He pressed, already aware Vails were a cruel lot; he’d lived amongst them after all. But thankfully spared the true heights of their depravity, because of his rapid growth in worth.
The smile on Bliss’s lip fell lightly, her ears sagging. “They’re always plotting, thoughts to enact violence a common occurrence, but the likelihood of failure keeps them from acting.”
Dailin frowned, he shouldn’t have been surprised. ‘So even the lowest are waiting for a chance to strike. Well; no more.’ With them touched by the spell of affection it would be all they would ever want. The promise of more, if they behaved and conformed to a new norm, would keep the peace.
“They are so wrong,” Bliss continued. “The song isn’t enough to fix this, it only temporarily fills the emptiness within them.”
“I call them Chilltouched for a reason.” Dailin commented, watching as his army of singers spread through the tier. Affection flowing, but the moment it stopped, all the crippling side effects of his song would be revealed. A cold born from hollowed hearts; an icy sting that Vails couldn’t endure.
The only ones not afflicted with this ailment, were his children.
He knew that singing to infants made them immune to it later on. “The song can fix them,” he informed. “If they are young enough.” He assumed it had to do with innocence, the children not yet scarred, or taught the barbarism of the realm.
“Eventually the song will set the Vail right,” he concluded. After a few generations with the warmth touching every part of the settlement. Infants born, be they Giftless or Worthy, would be encased within it, and made normal as his own children had been. The rest, those too old, would have to live with the chills for the rest of their lives.
“They could all be made right within moments,” Bliss spoke up. “I feel the nature of the song you instilled me with; It has others experience love.” Dailin’s ears twitched; he hadn’t heard that word spoken aloud since coming to this realm. The Vail tongue didn’t have a perfect translation for it, hence why it was referred to as warmth.
“You could change it; request they be able to produce it themselves. Ask they be fixed, the hollowness with them filled, and made right.”
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed. ‘I could do that, couldn’t I?’
Well, not himself personally, but the Mana. ‘Just a subtle change of thinking, and pouf, problem solved.’ He wouldn’t have to waste Mana singing to them anymore, not if they had empathy. In fact, couldn’t he instill that into them too?
“By the divines, I’m going about this all wrong.” He’d been alleviating the symptoms rather than going straight for the source of the problem. “If they are all normal, aligned with aiding each other.” He wouldn’t have to focus so much attention on them.
“Yes, that might actually work Bliss,” he said excitedly. “But not yet, not now.” He forced himself to remain calm. “I must test this. Continue as before,” he ordered. “The Outer-tier will be pacified first; then we can focus on healing them.”
“As you desire Maker,” Bliss said happily.
‘I could have prevented everything,’ he thought quietly. If his original Maidens had been normal, the Anointed themselves. ‘No, no there was nothing I could have done.’ He hadn’t known back then, wasn’t aware just how twisted Vails were.
‘But not for much longer,’ he thought, a smile marking his lip.
***
He made more Blisses, dozens, and filled their collective link with a few Houses worth of Mana before he left them to their work. However, some still followed him; not that he minded, once again Bliss proved her worth, and freed him from a task that would have been impossible to maintain.
After some trials, they’d found it more cost effective to have multiple people singing in local areas, rather than one consuming Mana at an alarming rate to cover the same space.
He needed Bliss to keep the Chilltouched docile, while he worked on a possible means to redeem the Vail.
Bliss’s idea thundering in his mind; a possible means to cure Vails, turn them into moral people; caused his march back to the Spire to be a swift one.
The areas around him were kept empty by devoted Chanters, and Knights; both unnecessary, since none could harm him. With his continued improvements to the Well and his body, he towered over most Vail, and had the means to end them with a single thought.
His large figure, clad in silver armor—which Vail considered holy—kept people around him passive. All onlookers, eager to find a means to gain his attention, instead of backstabbers waiting for the right moment to strike.
He knew this, given his etheric senses allowed him to feel and see their emotions. The Masses were covered in auras of gray, black, and sickly muddle colors; their thoughts shouting into the air, polluting it with base desires. They wanted him in so many ways, all of it dark; they craved the power he held, and the warmth they desperately sought.
As the masses watched him, he waved, acting benevolent. Even sang some, sending out small doses of the sensation they worshiped. They cheered, praised his name; under his helm, disgust marred his face. The rot within these people, the vile wickedness hidden under a thin veneer of civility. Many were cursing each other in their minds, hoping those around them received ill-fated ends.
‘Why am I surprised, Chilltouched, they are Chilltouched.’ People so empty of compassion and love, they’d never experienced it till he had arrived to sing it to them. Of course they would be wretches on the inside, beings of envious contemp.
‘I am in Hades,’ he thought, in the terms of evil dwelling. Though the fact that the realm really did reside underground, wasn’t lost to him either, nor the truth he’d been born into it.
He still felt out of place, not meant to be here, and the peoples malice emotions only increased the sensation. Yet he was still here, all by his own acts of folly. And if he didn’t try, preserve his life, make the most of it. There might be even worse realms awaiting him.
That factor kept him going; instead of walling himself off in his own den of vices, wasting his life away, and ignoring the looming danger outside trying to claw its way in. That, and his Instinct pressing on his shoulders, a constant reminder that all wasn’t well. The safety around them was a temporary thing. It wouldn’t last if he didn’t keep improving, and striving to save everything around him.
‘But I can’t keep this up forever.’ Even though the Well provided an endless flow of Mana, there was so many forces around with their hands out, demanding portions. Eventually, if he wasn’t careful, the demand could outstrip what the Well produced. He also had to keep his own reserves, needed to feed the Well so its Outflow kept rising.
‘If we don’t have to sing,’ he thought, the idea so alluring. ‘All that power can be used elsewhere.’
Namely towards the Well, perpetuating its forever growth. If he was to fight back the Nightmare, and expand their home towards a Sanctum, then the Well’s Outflow had to be greatly increased. Which meant he had to find out whether he could fix the Vail, and he had the perfect person in mind.
Sothsea, the last of his four original Maidens, and a cruel little Vail that took delight in punishing others. She still belonged to his House; sequestered away with the other Maidens he occasionally laid with to produce more pups. If he could heal her, then the prospect of curing everyone else would be doable.
‘It would be a fitting punishment.’ With her normal, able to feel empathy, understand, and regret the acts of harm she inflicted on others. Then he might begin to forgive her. He would never trust her, not even with the ability to see her thoughts. But he would be more tolerant of her existence.
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In a way it was a means of redemption for her, and if it failed, there wouldn’t be any loss. Not even if the process broke her mind. Which was a major reason he wanted to trial the spell before unleashing it on the masses. The last thing he needed was a settlement of Vails with shattered psyches. But that possibility didn’t damper his mood, his stride remained quick, the Inner-tier passing him by in a blur, so too for the masses watching from every angle possible.
He interacted very little with people, his mind centered on the spell he planned to enact. So, it was a bit surprising when he found himself nearing the Gate to his tower, the doors hurriedly opened to match his stride. Alarmed sons stared at him as he entered, auras of worry encompassing most. They thought the task of pacifying the Outer-tier wasn’t going well, or Bliss had failed in some way.
He hummed to calm them: “The task is going blessedly,” he said as the doors to his tower closed. “Most of the Outer-tier slumbers under the warm embrace of my shared light.” Blisses stood proudly at his side as sons relaxed; parted to let him pass, and then followed. Curiosity and concern taking them as he hadn’t stopped to give them affection. No, the idea was too alluring, he had to know. Thus, a host of sons went with him, along with Blisses as he marched into the lower sections of the Spire. Heading for the Maidens sequestered away behind layers of Wards, and standing guards.
Each checkpoint was quickly passed as sons hurriedly opened the way to his target. In minutes he arrived, one last intricately carved Gate in his way. A son placed a Waystone upon its surface, parting the double doors, and allowing him to enter.
A myriad of women turned their attention his way; their murmurs of conversation dying down.
The place was filled with leisurely comforts, be it the overly cushioned furniture, to carpeted floor. Artful decorations plastered the Ward covered walls, while crystal ornaments hanged from the ceiling, bathing the rooms in a comforting light. Tables were speckled about, many filled with pitchers and trays holding cuisine.
Accompanying all this were singers, actors performing plays, and numerable board games placed about to keep the women entertained. All of them were in different states of pregnancy, and surrounded by large Animastones they frequently absorbed power from. The infants growing within them required a large amount of resources to propel their development. When fully mature they would be similar in size, and Channel quality, of when he had seeded them.
Maidens rose from their seats as he entered, the sounds of amusement dying away as the chambers filled with a foreboding aura. Even those who hadn’t been part of his House during the war gave off fearful hues, likely informed by those who had, of his raging temperament during that time.
He could see it, their Fear. It was sharp, and encompassed much of the room he had entered. He arrived outside a normal time, nor with new maidens, and it was well known he didn’t lay with those already pregnant. Which meant he wanted something else, since it wasn’t time for them to be sang to either.
He scanned the chamber, not speaking a word, or sending out a wave of warmth. He let them congregate together and kneel on the floor as a group. None of them asked what he wanted, or lifted their gazes to look at his face.
Spotting Sothsea from the group wasn’t hard, she was smaller than most, and the greatest producer of fear. It was a greyish blaze, one that grew worse as she noticed his attention on her.
“Come here Sothsea,” he said in an even tone. She bolted up right, hurried to his side as her head remained at the floor. Once close, she moved to kneel again, but he wrapped a hand around her upper arm, and began pulling her to an adjoining room. She trembled as they left together, fear mixing with Dread. That second emotion eclipsed the first as he closed the doors to the main chamber, leaving the two of them alone, while his sons and Blisses guarded the remaining women.
He stopped moving deeper into the room after a few steps, and, grabbing hold of Sothsea with both hands, he peered into her with his second sight; whispered to his Mana for it to aid him in the act.
‘What did I do? Is he going to kill me? Am I being made an example of? Did one of the others proclaim falsehoods against me?’
On and on her mind raced with concerns, mixing with them, a shifting hue of emotions and desires.
‘It’s the Newborns,’ she thought. ‘They finally sent the Seeder to finish me.’ Anger flared, its hue an ugly red. ‘I should have beat them harder, we were too soft, and Unthee too confident in her belief of making them behave.’ He listened to it, watching the emotions linked to them. There wasn’t a speck of regret about how she’d treated her own pups. No remorse, no empathy; only the need to control and dominate. He could see she found enjoyment in it, making others grovel to her, beg, and cry out as she beat them.
He gazed deeper, searching for anything good; some spark of kindness. He instead found an abyss, the hole within the Chilltouched that Bliss had spoken of. The center of their torment, the place where the cold they felt ebbed from.
He assumed this emptiness had always been there, and them simply unaware of it for a time, since they didn’t know what they were missing. His song caused a comparison, and a horrifying realization of what they lacked.
Looking at that blackness, watching its spreading touch. He could see it mingle with everything, affecting all her thoughts, and motivations. A desire to feel something, anything, that could resolve the emptiness within.
‘This won’t do, not at all.’ Seeing it for the first time with his own eyes, the depths of evil that dwelled within them; the knowing it wouldn’t be fixed on its own. He put his mind to work. If the hole within them was the source of the problem, it had to be filled, and he had three things in mind to do just that.
‘Heal her,’ he thought to the Mana. “Fill the emptiness in her with Love, Empathy, and Compassion.’ He emphasized those words, let the Mana know how important they were. ‘Make it that these emotions will always be with her.’
The key failure of his first song.
The Mana shifted, pulsing with his intention as it flowed from him and into her. The moment it did, she screamed, writhed, tried to pull from him. The Mana halted, began to be pushed back, even as he willed to it with all his might; somehow a force was countering him.
“What are you doing to me?” She cried hysterically. “No, no,” she said over and over. Each time it felt like a blow to his mind, the Mana retreated, fleeing away from her.
‘How is she doing this?’ He thought horrified, and enraged. “Don’t fight it,” he yelled back, and grabbed her by the neck. She clawed desperately at his hand while he kept willing to the Mana, but it wouldn’t advance; not with her mind screaming out a rebuke.
‘I don’t understand, why now?’ He’d sung to them constantly, forced an emotional state on them without trouble. Yet now, at the moment of healing, the Mana was being countered, his wish outstripped by another.
“Its for your own good,” he said through gritted teeth. Yet his words were lost to her, her mind kept screaming out denials, and for some odd reason, the Mana listened to it over him. In that moment, watching his power falter, he realized he couldn’t force it.
Sothsea had to agree to this change.
Seeing this, and the fact his aggression wasn’t helping his cause. Dailin calmed himself, took a deep breath, and weakened his grip on her neck. He lowered her to the floor, removed his hand, and took hold of her shoulders instead.
She choked and sobbed, shivered with waves of fright. He began to hum, filling the chamber with the song of affection. The Mana acted instantly, freed from the force pressing against it. Sothsea gasped, her body and will weakening.
She calmed down instantly, and her mind quieted of its raving rejections. He kept her in that state for minutes, watching with interest, how the song filled the hole of emptiness, but wasn’t pushed away. He saw it be consumed the moment he stopped singing, and Sothsea brought back to alertness from the cold chills that arrived to torment her moments later.
He saw an opening, a weakness to exploit. He took it, for he couldn’t give up. If he could cure the Vail, it would be a large step forward in making the realm into a wonderful place.
So, even with Instinct pressing on him, warning that his actions brought forth danger; Dailin spoke: “I can make the coldness inside you go away.” He leaned closer to her, his frame engulfing her own. “Forever.” The word made her look up, their eyes meeting for the smallest of Breaths. She gazed back down, her mind a storm of warring thoughts.
“All you have to do,” he added, keeping her distracted. “Is allow me to cure you, to fill that emptiness in your chest.” She held herself, hesitation and fear battling within her mind. “Do this,” he continued, watching it all keenly. “And I may even forgive you,” her thoughts stilled. “You won’t be locked up anymore, you’ll be allowed to wander the Spire, mingle with others.”
He didn’t say a word about the fact she might still be treated ill. His sons and daughters ignoring her, or keeping close watch on her movements. But none of that came to mind. All she was thinking about was a second chance, and a means to climb the ranks of the House.
To regain his favor.
“What do you say Sothsea?” He asked in a voice covered in warmth. “Will you let me cure you?”
She began to plan in that mind of hers, debating whether to bargain for more, or to wait later when she had some influence. Her thoughts favored the second, and she lowered herself as best she could in his grip. Acting like a well-mannered lady, instead of the scheming spider preparing to weave her webs again, hoping to one day hold control over him and his House.
“Grand Chosen,” she said. “The Giver’s eighth son; I accept this deal.”
“Blessed,” Dailin replied with a smile, and held her tenderly. “Now remember, don’t fight it.” She nodded once, and he started again.
Reciting to the Mana—it acting a little faster—tendrils of light emerged from him, and coursed into her. She gasped, her body flexing tight, but she didn’t reject the power, even as it weaved deep into her, the Soul; touched upon the emptiness where all the wrong came from.
There the Mana gathered, whirling in a dazzling tide of symbols; it waited for a handful of seconds, then rushed within. Sothsea froze, her mind a battlefield as she fought the urge to refuse whatever the Mana was doing.
“Don’t fight it,” he repeated to her. “Welcome it, and the future it brings.” She focused on his words, the Mana fast at work. He watched the emptiness in her filling in, and remain so. Sothsea grabbed her chest, eyes wide and mind mute.
“We’re almost there,” he said fondly; memorized by the miracle taking place. At the end of its task, there was a flash within her center. The emptiness gone, and the Mana receding. Sothsea went limp, but spared from crashing to the floor because of his grip.
Her eyes lulled about dazed, mind stuttering before she returned to awareness. The moment she did, Sothsea began to pat her chest and breathe deep; her thoughts focused entirely on her own being.
So was he, for the Mana had done exactly what he’d asked. Where the abyss had been, was now the pulsing light of emotions; the three he’d imbued the Mana with.
It had an immediate effect on her. The once self-centered and abusive thoughts she entertained, were gone, and replaced with a wave of regret. “What have you done to me?” She asked, tears welling up in her eyes as she hugged herself.
“Healed you,” he voiced, quite pleased with his work. “Made you right; never again will you act to harm your kin, or perform any cursed deeds.”
Sothsea began to cry tears of sorrow, the regret flooding her mind. “It births Pain, it births Pain,” she choked out. For the first time in months, Dailin pulled his cured Maiden into a hug. “Of course it does, you have committed many curses.”
She shivered in his grip, pressing herself against him as she sobbed. She said words, but they were too muffled to hear; he heard the thoughts connected to them instead.
A wondering of why she’d done so many wrongs. Why she thought it was worth it? She thought of the pain, and suffering she’d caused others, worse of all to her own children.
As for himself, pride and a sick joy coursed through him. To see Sothsea suffer for the things she’d done, it healed him in a way. That justice had been brought, and it would spread; if he could get the masses to accept his change. The cultural norm of the settlement would improve instantly. The sociopathic actions of Vails removed, and replaced with the morals of high society.
Joyous, and distracted by thoughts of upliftment; it took him a moment to notice the change.
Instinct’s call, the pressure on his shoulders that sometimes felt like hands, diminished. Before, Dread had moved through him, danger present, and linked with his actions to try and force healing.
Now, there was peace.
‘Are you pleased with me?’ He thought in the form of prayer, aimed at any god near enough to hear. ‘Of the wonder I have brought.’ The grips on his shoulders left, and for a few seconds the sensation of Instinct was gone entirely. In that moment, free of it, he felt another.
A subtle hug from behind, he was sure of it.
How else could he take the sign? Other than one of favor, the gods were pleased with his work. Even as Sothsea continued to cry, tormented by her past sins. So much regret, so much that could have been prevented if she’d had even a morsel of empathy.
Combing her fur, and looking towards the doors separating him from the other women in need of help. Dailin smiled, envisioned what was to come, of a settlement filled with moral, caring people.
A shining light in the abysmal dark.
‘They will all be healed,’ he thought, and looking down at Sothsea. ‘And there will be mourning, but after.’ Once they came to terms with the things they had done, a new future would await them.