Zelkan watched as Mevare, his ward and leader, was whisked away by her loyal golden Sentinel. For a moment he was glad, despite her anguished surprise and already flowing tears. Yet even as he turned back to face the oncoming horde, he knew there was no escape or victory against such overwhelming odds. Regardless, Zelkan took a stand hoping he might buy time for Saerin and Ouapi, but despite his attempt he saw the other two hold the same glint of resistance in their eyes.
In an instant they stopped to face the attackers, with their only hope to stall or distract them so Mevare could be taken away to safety. It was a small, and mostly pointless hope. The wave of metal crashed into the three of them, barely able to turn fast enough to face them. Zelkan met the mechanical horrors with whatever strength he could muster, which wasn’t much compared to the overwhelming mass of constructs flowing out of the city.
Careening projectiles of fire, plasma, and bullets flew from the road towards the golden Sentinel. But as it was designed, the Sentinel avoided and escaped the oncoming ambush. Zelkan and the others were not as lucky or skilled.
As the swarm of constructs fell upon the three of them, they were battered and restrained. Zelkan saw a larger construct, with many eyes and dangling appendages wielding surgical implements, and it restrained Saerin just before it injected a thin needle into her skin. Almost at the same moment the needle touched her flesh, the woman fell limp. A metallic mask was affixed to her face, with a tube running from it into the larger construct. It quickly fell upon Ouapi with a similar result, and finally moved towards Zelkan.
Zelkan struggled against his attackers, and when the large construct attempted to inject him as well he fought even harder. He refused to succumb to whatever was planned for them. Yet as he fought and resisted he continued to scream curses in his head, what had happened to Modrak’s lab? These robotic horrors were not here before, and there was no city here either. He had last seen Modrak only fifteen years ago, such a monumental creation such as this city and an army of robots would’ve been impossible with the few resources Modrak had at his disposal.
Regardless of how strange and impossible the situation seemed, Zelkan was overpowered by the ocean of metal he was thrown into. The large construct restrained him, and a needle pressed into his flesh. The world when white and a ringing noise deafened his ears. Yet all his pain began to wash away. His duties, troubles, sores, and even his difficult memories all ebbed and flowed in the current of white noise and blindness. Something wanted to take them away, remove the pain and suffering. Zelkan wanted it to, he wanted the anguish and horrid memories he kept inside to erase themselves. Yet even as he wished for a promised release, he remembered. He had an oath, a duty declared and loyalties given. He was a loyal servant of the Magi and their vision. He would not abandon his loyalty so easily to some fake release.
As Zelkan was swept away by the substance injected into his bloodstream, the white noise tried to take away his pain, suffering, and memories. Yet within those memories and experiences was his loyalty to his Lords Magi, who despite his failings accepted and protected him from a life he knew was worse. He refused the release, forcing himself to remember his painful past and reinforcing his gratitude for being rescued. But with his gratitude came his memory of his mentor, the one who gave him the chance to serve the Magi better. Modrak.
Zelkan could suddenly feel again, it was a numb sensation but he could feel regardless. His vision was still gone, but he could feel the rough jostling of his numb body against cold metal. How long had he been unaware of his senses? Where had he been taken? He tried to feel what little he could to help understand what was happening, it had been only moments since he was captured, at least thats what he thought.
A portion of Zelkan’s vision began to return. At first small pinpricks of dark in the white noise blocking his senses. Then the pinpricks turned into blotches, and from that into misshapen images. Zelkan had been brought to a pristine lab. A tidy and clean space, with very little in the form of real implements. He was laying atop a metal examination table, on the wall in front of him there were collections of chemist’s tools and glass vessels. He checked his surroundings, but the room was shrouded in a strange dark cloud, one that suspiciously concealed a greater part of the lab he was in.
Sitting up, Zelkan was almost surprised he wasn’t restrained, but even without restraints his body was exhausted and sore. He didn’t know why, but even moving to sit up took almost all his remaining strength. As he did, a faint voice calmly spoke out of the darkness, “So you return. Here to plague me once again…”
Zelkan was still, calmly taking in his surroundings, “Who are you? Are you the one I met years ago..?” He questioned, hoping the voice wasn’t who he feared it was.
“To forget my name… Disappointing. Yes. We have met.” The voice eventually replied.
“I did not forget, but that name no longer belongs to you. Not after what you became.”
“What I became?” The voice laughed, “I evolved, I became more. I am power.”
“Then why capture me? You have clearly built an army for your designs, I hold no use to you.”
“I wished to learn from you, and I have business with another. After I am done I will debate your release or execution.”
“Kill me or release me, but don’t waste my time with poisoned talk.” Zelkan said bitterly.
“In due time.”
“Modrak!” Zelkan shouted, his anger bubbling.
“Ah! So you do remember… Good. Now sleep, there is much I wish to learn.”
Against Zelkan’s will and despite his brain telling him to stay awake, Zelkan’s body began to droop and fall to the table he lay upon. A heavy blanket of sleep draped over him, and he was quickly asleep. Yet his conscious mind almost felt awake and lucid.
Zelkan knew his body had fallen into a slumber, yet his mind was aware and awake as if his eyes were simply closed shut. His body refused to listen to his orders and instead began to enter a deep state of sleep, and dreams began to manifest in a lucid detail before his unconscious mind’s eye.
The dream slowly wound itself together like gathering strands of yarn before Zelkan’s sight. The wisps of memories and images began to gather together in such mass that a scene was born. It was one that he held dear, as it was the day he began his true devotion to his Magi lords.
A dark room with cramped hallways. ‘Bunks’ embedded into the walls with a sort of standing bed where volunteers lay. Upon the beds lay people of all ages and sizes. The dredges of society who sold themselves to the Magi as willing tribute. Injected tubing connected directly to the volunteer’s arms and legs, cycling their blood out of their body and ‘cleaning’ it through a machine next to their bunk. Their small space was a private one, which was rare for most other tributaries under a different Magi, but the bunk was filled with monitoring equipment of all kinds and sounds. A dim hum echoed from all places in this facility, occasional loud beeping silenced by a quick moving caretaker. Within one of these bunks Zelkan could see… himself.
Zelkan could see himself laying against the vertical bed, in a state of weariness that confounded his senses into a daze-like state. Approaching into the bunk’s quarters, Zelkan unwillingly looked close to his own body. So neatly wrapped in bandages, with faint puddles of dried blood under the wrappings, Zelkan’s much younger form was nearly a corpse in the state he was in. The dark room hid his features from Zelkan’s true mind’s perspective, but as he watched himself in a grim memory the body Zelkan inhabited began to unlink and detach the devices connected to his younger body. As Zelkan watched the thick bandages be removed, and sharp needles and tubes detached, the wrapping around Zelkan’s younger form’s eyes were removed. In the same moment the faint illumination, from the nearby buttons and gauges, touched his younger self’s eyes, Zelkan’s perspective switched to his younger form. Suddenly illuminated was his old mentor, Modrak.
Zelkan saw his old mentor standing before him. The man who changed his life’s course forever had returned in the spitting image of his youthful memory. A seemingly golden colored skin with freckles that glinted like silver. His friendly and caring expression of calm as he continued to unwrap Zelkan from his bandages. Only a single utterance, “Don’t worry…” Modrak had said, “I am here now…”
Just as the nostalgia began to flood sad memories back into Zelkan’s thoughts, the dream went askew. The dark hallway and machinery cracked and twisted. The dim lights from the measuring equipment pulsed a rainbow of colors. Then, a voice returned from some depth below to echo its thoughts, “So… This is your first memory of ‘Modrak’ as you knew him. Interesting.”
Zelkan had no control over his dream body, but screamed in his own mind a reply, “Damn you, how dare you defile his name and memory? Release me already!”
Rather than a response, the voice’s source simply chuckled. The dream continued to skew until even Modrak’s original form shifted and cracked. Then the dream shattered and the pieces melted together to begin forming a new memory. Zelkan fought against the process, but had no power whatsoever and was a forced observer of the dream.
A new memory began to formulate. Zelkan was in one of the training facilities. Marbled white walls and floor, with a thin layer of dust covering most places. Zelkan sat in a cafeteria alone, eating a large pile of synthetic rations. The pink slop was sitting idly on a plastic spoon, but Zelkan wasn’t eating like he should be. Instead he was staring into the distance, his focus on the white-gray patterns in the walls.
As Zelkan stared into the distance, his mind and awareness was fading in and out, his ability to act and think independently ebbing slowly away. Then, as his attention and focus began to waver, a new figure entered the room. Turning his head, Zelkan saw his mentor again. It was his daily visit, to check in on Zelkan’s progress in his studies. Modrak entered the room, an elegant flowing white robe with silver runes covering most of the area in old language scrawl. Modrak held a quiet cadence, a kind and modest man with elder’s lines developing on his face. His skin was made up of almost shining golden tint, his face and arms speckled with points of silver tint like freckles and beautiful blemishes. Yet despite his striking appearance, he carried himself modestly even though he would easily be one of the most handsome men of his great age.
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Modrak fully entered the room, approaching Zelkan’s seat swiftly enough to appear to be floating under his flowing robes. A kind and eager expression appeared on Modrak’s face, happy to see his student. Zelkan could feel his internal conflict growing, he wished to speak to and be with Modrak again but he knew this vision had to be a lie. When Modrak stopped next to Zelkan he spoke eagerly, “Zel, I have exciting news!”
Zelkan almost flinched when he heard the name his mentor always used with him, but his body wasn’t fully under his control and continued the memory without his choice, “What is it, my lord?” Zelkan asked.
“You will officially be promoted to Acolyte soon! And alongside that, I am being made Lady Ress’kasa’s assistant!”
“That is... Incredible! I don’t know what to say…”
“You need’nt say anything, young Zel. But with both of our advancements we must find a way to celebrate! I heard that the last world we collected tithe from paid in a large collection of a strange fermented beverage, I hear many request it on the higher facility campuses. We should retrieve some for ourselves, who knows when we will have free time again to do something like this!”
Modrak wouldn’t take no for an answer, and before long they were heading to the higher facilities to ‘celebrate’. Zelkan remembered this as well, it was a joyous time for both of them but also the beginning of when they would slowly drift apart. They celebrated together happily, despite the residents of the higher facilities becoming annoyed by the rambunctiousness they spread to onlookers. Several higher ranked servants of both the Lords Magi Odion and Maphet came to calm and stop their celebration, but Modrak’s personality and persistence was so much that even they would join the celebrations. He was always one to try and bring people together, refusing to allow any person to stay annoyed or sad for long. He had a talent for working with anyone and everyone.
Zelkan watched the happy memory in silence. Reveling in the nostalgia despite the illusory nature of the vision. When the memory began to fade, after Zelkan and Modrak gave each other a final hug before they left to their new lives and responsibilities, the memory collapsed and disappeared like the last. Zelkan, despite the goodness of the celebration, felt a deeper sadness than he had ever experienced. Zelkan tried as often as he could to forget and ignore his old memories of his mentor, being reminded of him like this was a cruel form of torture. The deep voice echoed its presence again, “This Modrak was quite the man it seems. You are… hurt, despite this being one of your best memories. Remarkable, how easily influenced your kind are.”
“Why do you torment me? What do you gain from this…” Zelkan’s spirit was drained and his defiance was empty.
“You are a means to acquire knowledge, be proud of your usefulness.”
The echoing voice dissipated. Zelkan was left again to see the scraps of memory fade into darkness again. The presence behind the voice sifted through Zelkan’s other memories. Barely bringing them fully to view before moving onto another. They were searching for something, something that seemingly wasn’t there. Then the presence lingered on a vision, and allowed the memory to form around Zelkan like the others.
Zelkan was placed into a pristine marble hallway, already walking as if his feet knew his destination before he did. He walked a ways, a seemingly ordinary memory of some time he was within one of the higher facilities. As he turned a corner, time almost slowed. Zelkan entered onto an open courtyard where plants and decorative geology dotted the mossy ground, servants of both Lords Magi Odion and Maphet roaming the grounds. In the corner of his eye, Zelkan spotted Modrak talking to a figure hidden behind a cluster of moss-covered trees.
Zelkan’s perspective changed again for the briefest of moments. He was looking from Modrak’s eyes again, but time began to slow and came to a crawl, and as he tried to look at the face before him there was only a black stain where a face should be. A grumbling echo like building thunder could be heard for only a moment before Zelkan’s perspective was returned to his own body and the memory played out like normal.
Zelkan’s legs continued to carry him forward while time was slowed around him, more of the serene courtyard opening up for him as the slowed time passed. Zelkan’s head turned to stare towards his old mentor, and saw the striking form of his mentor’s counterpart, Ress’kasa. The striking feminine form of Ress’kasa stood in idle chatter with Modrak. Her body was covered in sparkling green scales and she bore a reptilian head, but she still held a feminine figure despite. Her sleek sparkling scales clung tightly to her chiseled features. She held a beauty that embraced her more alien appearance, but nevertheless stood as if a master sculpture hand carved every feature and blemish to perfection. She was the envy of many, her strange appearance only enhanced the mystique.
Time slowed to a standstill, and Zelkan found himself half staring at Ress’kasa. His attention was entirely pointed at her despite his body’s instinct telling him to keep walking forward as if he still had further to go. Yet he stood still, the two were barely within the edge of Zelkan’s vision as he only gave a passing glance in the direction of where Ress’kasa and Modrak stood. A grim hum echoed out of some deep and faraway place within the dream. Then the vision shattered again, quickly pulling Zelkan from one memory to another.
Zelkan was forced again to view another strange memory. One where he barely passed by a brief image of Ress’kasa and Modrak, another where Zelkan waved to his old mentor and saw a glimpse of Ress’kasa peeking around a corner to return a curt nod to Zelkan. Other glimpses and short scenes of Ress’kasa and Modrak, so few times Zelkan had seen them together than Zelkan rewatched several memories repeat themselves. Zelkan realized what the entity might be searching for… It was looking for Ress’kasa. The woman who Zelkan almost never even spoke to, only hearing hints and stories by Modrak or others higher ranked than himself.
An irritated hum echoed again through the dream as Zelkan was plunged once again into the dark. Whatever this creature was, and if it was the one that claimed the name ‘Modrak’, it was becoming angry without finding what it searched for. Zelkan had been drained of energy and willpower, but mustered himself to speak again, “Whatever you look for… You will not find it in me. I never even truly got close to the apprentice-in-training until her last day… I never got the chance to see my mentor and she work together, or get the chance to beg him to be more careful…”
“If you say you never met until her end, then we will have to witness it.” The deep voice grumbled and crackled like distant thunder.
Zelkan almost regretted speaking, as he felt himself being pulled once again into an old memory. His worst memory and one he had silently hoped would never be found. Zelkan was walking the golden-etched halls of a familiar place. The inner halls of the high facilities, where the greatest representatives of the Magi work and study. Miraculous experiments and reality-tearing research was conducted in the laboratories of these sacred halls. Zelkan never truly got the chance to witness any of the greatest works done here, but his mentor lived and breathed innovation and as such was brought to assist Ress’kasa in a holy mission given directly by the Magi.
Zelkan tried to ignore, repulse, and escape the memory before it fully began. He knew the end, and refused to remember any part of it. Yet even as he silently fought against himself, he was only a powerless witness to what had already transpired. His legs were his captives that dragged him to a doom he knew was unavoidable. He was brought before elegant doors, etched in indecipherable glyph and rune which glowed with a blue arcana.
Before the doors, Zelkan stopped. The imposing wall was all that separated him from the turning point in his own history. If only Zelkan had been more rushed, raced faster to these terrible doors and burst through them in his great purpose. Yet he had walked. Alestair himself, Magi Apprentice to the Lord Magi Odion, had given him a mission to seek out and assist his old mentor. Zelkan couldn’t have known the urgency, nor the importance of his timing. If he did, maybe things would’ve been different.
Zelkan approached the doors, which began to open even before he fully stopped. An immense heat could be felt before anything was seen, it flooded out of the smallest crack and engulfed Zelkan like he was on fire. Panic raced through him, unsure what was happening or what to do before he could even see what was really happening. Zelkan had still been young and coddled by this point. Emergencies didn’t happen in the Magi’s service, at least not within any of the houses of research and study. Yet some part of Zelkan must’ve been related to someone incredibly heroic, because despite his panic and the pain from the heat, Zelkan didn’t run.
The doors opened, revealing a chaotic miasma of changing color and shifting elements. Electricity exploded through clouds of multicolored smoke that spiraled in gusts. Plasma exploded from the concentrated energy, creating incredible energy bursts that sent out waves of progressively hotter air and smoke. Through the spiraling smoke and arcing electricity, two figures could be seen silhouetted by an incredible light. One stood tall, their hands around the source of the light like they meant to grasp it, the other on its knees and unmoving.
As Zelkan watched, a significantly more powerful burst of energy exploded a wave of power from the source of the light. The smoke and miasma was pushed suddenly away, in its place Zelkan saw Modrak and Ress’kasa. Modrak stood around a strange orb, which seemed to be the source of the chaos, and Ress’kasa knelt unmoving and badly burnt. The smoke and electricity seemed to have subsided, or was held back by the rapid pulses of power from the orb, and in some moronic attempt to be a hero Zelkan raced in. He thought, somehow, he would be able to stop this and save them both from whatever was happening, he always wondered how things would have turned out if he had simply played the coward and stood aside.
Zelkan raced into the destroyed laboratory, almost being knocked onto his back several times as pulses of invisible energy pushed against him with a force like being hit by a blunt weapon. Somehow, Zelkan managed to reach where Ress’kasa sat, only an arm’s reach from Modrak. Zelkan shouted, but nobody could hear him, not even he could hear or remember what he yelled. Yet Modrak still turned to look at him with a single, terrible, eye. His eye glowed with swirling electrical current, veins bulging out like they would burst from his skin, and his arms were charred from the closeness of the orb. Zelkan only got a few moments to look properly at Ress’kasa, and she would’ve been dead to anyone’s eyes. Her normally beautiful scales were charred to pitch, her face unrecognizable, and she sat atop a blacked mark on the ground that seemed to indicate a powerful electrical strike had hit her.
Zelkan had reached the two figures, and Modrak was still somehow alive despite the situation. Zelkan had to figure out a way to save his mentor, and stop the chaos, but after getting so far he was stunned by the sight of a death this gruesome. The heat of the orb radiated more powerful every second, even in that moment of confused contemplation Zelkan’s skin was being boiled and burnt by the close proximity to the source of the chaos. Through the pain, he pushed himself to save Modrak, and as he searched the lab for anything that might stop the carnage he saw many pipes and insulated tubes snaking along the ground to the pedestal the orb sat on. Zelkan moved to attack the tubing, hoping it was powering the reactions the orbs created.
Zelkan found a piece of metal shard wedged into the ground from some previous explosion, and began cutting and slashing at the nearest tubing. He could hear a sputtering coming out of the tube, electrical arcs spitting out sparks and flares. Yet as he began his attempt, Modrak let out a yell so great that it echoed over the chaos around them and felt like it would shatter Zelkan’s eardrums.
Still cutting away at the tubing, something grabbed Zelkan’s shoulder. Being turned violently, Zelkan was face to face with an enraged and burning Modrak. The man who was once his mentor had electricity coursing out of him, and he was on fire with white hot flames. Wherever Modrak touched was singed and burnt to a crisp. Zelkan’s shoulder was touched when he was turned around, and when he pulled back from the pain Modrak only moved quicker to grab him again. Seizing his throat and grabbing at his face, Modrak clawed at his apprentice and adoptive son. The only man Zelkan had ever been able to even pretend was his father, grabbed and attacked his face and neck in a violent attempt to stop him. So overcome with fear, emotion, and pain Zelkan flailed back at his mentor. Before Modrak could kill him, for that was surely his intent, Zelkan pushed the crazed man away. Seeing that almost nothing had changed after Zelkan’s attempts to attack the tubing powering the chaos, Zelkan used the last of his strength and adrenaline to do the only remaining thing he could think of; he threw himself at the orb which sat atop a delicate pedestal.
Zelkan’s memory became white and hazy after this moment. He could feel and sense an incredible heat and power that coursed through him, but it exploded out in a violent way. His veins felt like they burst and his pores spat fire, but he dislodged the orb and collapsed onto the pedestal. The chaos ended almost instantly as whatever remained was absorbed by the safety mechanisms designed into the laboratory, which until this point had been struggling to contain the chaos to just this reinforced room. Zelkan remembered nothing else beyond this point in the memory, and its replay stopped here. If it were to continue, Zelkan would next awaken submerged in a gooey liquid within one of the medical facilities like the one his Lady Mevare studies within.
As the memory came to a stop, and Zelkan felt the blackness absorb him once again, he waited for the distant voice to speak ridicule once again. It never came. Zelkan faded into black, whatever the voice searched for it had either found or given up. Leaving Zelkan with the raw emotion and terror of reliving that nightmare. As the dark consumed him, a new sensation approached. His eyes began to open, a dim light tried to penetrate through his partially closed eyelids, and a soft soothing voice echoed into his mind. “Zel… Zelkan… Zelkan..?” A gentle hand placed on his chest and shoulder, barely noticeable because of the thick robes he still wore. As proper consciousness began to return to him, Zelkan forced his eyes open and saw his Lady Mevare leaning over him in a dark metal cavern.