Something moved in the dark. Something big. It pulled Isais’ attention from the dials in front of him. Heavy footsteps grew closer, half plodding, half dragging along cold stone.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
“What is that?”
A shadow fell briefly across the pool of light cast by the break in the sewer roof. Isais squinted his eyes, instinctively taking a step back. And then another, until his back was pressing up against the cold stone door.
Something white came into view, ambling awkwardly. A skeleton, stripped of flesh and muscle and tendon, only a few loose strands of hair falling lank from a polished head showed any sign of the human it once was.
“How…?” Isais’ mouth dropped, hanging agape.
Bones clattered against one another, no muscle to tie them together suggested some clumsy, unseen force was all that kept this creature from being a pile on the ground. Like a poor puppet whose master pulled wildly, recklessly on its strings, the skeleton lumbered and lurched. Arms shot out in wild jerking motions, its mouth opened and closed and opened again. Porcelain white head swiveled, left and right and all the way around. Toe bones click-clacked, knees bent unnaturally, forcing the creature low to the ground at an awkward angle before it somehow righted itself. It would have been almost comical if it weren't for the unsettling pulse of evil that seemed to emanate from it. Despite its lack of coordination and grace, it still moved slowly, inexorably, towards Isais.
Ready your magic fool!
Isais jolted as if from sleep. So caught up had he been on the unusual thing that he had forgotten the danger it represented. Slamming shut his mouth, he began to concentrate, drawing energy from within himself. There was noticeably less than the last time he had done it.
Be quick! Something bigger lurks behind it.
Panic swelled in Isais then and he released the force too soon. There was a small bang and a pile of bricks exploded from the wall a few feet to the left of the bone creature.
Isais cursed himself. He suddenly felt very sick, his stomach rising up into his throat. Building more power became difficult, anger clouded his head. Anger at his miss, anger at the situation he had been thrust into, anger at the voice that lurked inside his very body.
Focus!
Isais focused. The skeleton was only two lengths of an arm from him now. He raised a hand, picked a spot on the thing’s ribcage.
And released.
Shards of white rendered the air. Isais squeezed shut his eyes and raised a hand to protect his face as small fragments of bone tore into his skin. When he opened his eyes once more, the skeleton was nothing more than a broken and shattered jumble of osseous matter.
Suddenly overcome with fatigue, Isais collapsed to the floor, resting his back against the slab of a door that still lay between him and what he hoped was a respite from all this. He swallowed a lump of nausea and yelled. It was a sound more animalistic than human and its contents were pure emotion. Anger, fear, confusion, and despair warred inside of him. He had no idea how he had ended up in such a nightmarish situation.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
The thud-scraping cut his scream off.
“No,” he whispered. “No. I killed it!” His arms shook, legs trembled as he staggered to his feet. Though if it was fear or exhaustion that made him shake he couldn’t tell.
The dial. Open the dial!
[https://i.imgur.com/pjizr3A.png]
Of course. Quickly, Isais began to poke and prod and turn. Nothing happened. Panic swamped him.
Focus. You can do this.
He breathed in a heavy breath, felt his chest rise and fall. Some semblance of calm returned to him.
[https://i.imgur.com/msrezGx.png?1]
What did it mean?
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
He ignored the sound. Concentrated on the puzzle before him and frowned. It was more than a simple message, he knew that. It held answers. Answers that he so dearly needed. His eyes hovered over the symbols.
And then it hit him. The symbols were for man and woman. Him and her. But they were more than that. They were arrows! The eye had to represent 'find'. And stop? Could it be the skull? Was he supposed to kill someone? Allowing himself a small smile, he turned first the left, then the right dial and stepped back.
[https://i.imgur.com/SWXz2Fb.png]
He waited.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
And waited.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
“It has to be right!” He shouted when still nothing happened.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
And then another sound punctured the air. A beautiful sound. The sound of long-unused machinery coming to life with a whir and a clunk and a whizz. With a grown, and ever so slowly, the door began to move.
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst. Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst. Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst. Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst.
Isais spun, just as the monster’s shriek tore the air. It towered over him, filling the pool of light that dripped through the roof. Isais tried desperately to pull at the energy within himself, but all he ended up with was the pounding protests of his drained body.
Pit Fiend: Level 6.
HP, 2,412. Atk Power: 42 Speed: 7 Def: 25 Magic Def: 9 Agi: 2
Weakness: Fire
"What the hell am I looking at?" Isais shouted as the image flickered brightly in his mind.
The thing's stats.
"Its stats? It has stats!?"
Yes, but this isn't right. This shouldn't be here.
"What do you mean!?" His voice came out far shriller than he intended, fear stripping it of authority.
You shouldn't be able to see these! This is the safe zone, there are no stats. You should be safe here. This thing will kill you. I feel it. There is a power at work. It has brought down the sanctuary spells and this monster has crawled inside.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"It says the thing is weak to fire. Do we have fire? Can I make fire?"
No. Elemental magic is beyond humanity.
"Well of fuckin' course it is." Isais looked once more to the door, the gap even now only a few fingers wide. His heart hammered against his chest, he could feel it's flutter even in his stomach. He strained and he searched for any last lingering strand of power. What he was able to draw together probably wouldn’t have given a mouse a migraine.
So he was to die then. The thought of death itself was strangely untroubling, but he had no wish to die down here, in the dark, alone with this…thing. For 'thing' was all he could think to describe it. A full head taller than the tallest man, green, bubbling slime made up its skin. One leg was drastically larger and thicker than the other, while three huge arms erupted from a torso of black tar. The head was the most monstrous of all, one great eye above a grotesque maw lined with teeth and a mouth that exhaled the strange tar-like substance with every breath and shriek.
“I can’t…” Isais croaked. The door behind him was moving too slowly. He would be dead before it opened wide enough for him to slide through, dead before he could even turn.
I know. You have done well. Now it's time to let go.
“What do you mean?”
Dudsscrsst-dudsscrsst. The creature took a heavy step forward.
Sink into yourself. It's my turn. Just fall into the black. I’ve got this, brother.
Panic almost stripped away all control, but Isais focused on the voice’s words. Fall into the black? He looked inside himself. Suddenly became very aware of his body. And there, beneath the skin and the organs and the blood that pumped through his veins, he could see it. The blessed black. He let his consciousness fall. Felt it slip from his mind and down.
Down, down and down he tumbled and fell.
I’ve got this brother.
The voice gave him direction. He slipped towards it. And then his muscles were no longer his own. His body was no longer under his control. At the last, the blackness swallowed him.
I’ve got this brother.
But the words were not for Isais alone. They were spoken from his mouth, erupting into the air as the berserker took control. It flexed the fingers of Isais’ body, cracked the neck. Fresh strength poured into muscles. In front of the berserker, the sewer beast roared. The berserker let out a snarl of its own. And then it was running. But it did not run away from the horror before it. Like an arrow released from a taut bowstring, the berserker flew straight.
And then it leaped. Curling its body the berserker landed in a roll, hands stretched out. When it rose to its feet again it held two broken skeleton bones in two eager hands. They were thigh bones, the top of each splintered and sharp.
The berserker grinned.
The beast swung. A great paw aimed at the berserker’s head. Isais’ head would have rolled from his shoulders if the berserker hadn’t already dodged. Spinning away, the berserker thrust a bone behind it. The creature roared as Berserker felt its weapon sink through leathery skin. There was no time to savor its victory, however. Already Berserker was moving again, ducking under another mighty swipe and thrusting a splintered bone into the thing’s arm. Green-black blood bubbled out of the wound. Where the blood landed, the ground hissed and burned.
The second hand swung, Berserker dodged, but too slow. A small cut opened near an eye. Blood trickled down Isais’ face. Berserker wiped the blood away before licking it from the back of his hand and grinned with blood-stained teeth.
The beast roared.
Berserker bellowed.
And the two charged once more. Three monstrous arms swiped and jabbed and swatted, but Berserker was equal to all of it. He moved with controlled anger, hands a blur. Again, and again shattered bones slashed and shredded bubbling green flesh. A left hand stabbed at the giant’s back, a right sliced at the smaller of the two legs. The behemoth lunged in desperation, its blood leaking to the ground from a hundred cuts. Berserker rushed at it, rolling once more and coming up behind the sewer creature. Body twisting, hands rising, Berserker brought the two bones down into the giant head of the thing before it.
It howled, but it was a shrill sound and without any of its usual terror. And then it died. The two bones, now covered in the thing’s blood, fell to the floor. Only then did Berserker noticed the burns from where the blood had stained his hands. Strange, Berserker thought, that the pain of Isais’ body was suddenly very real. As the mad rage slowly wore off, the discomfort of a thousand scrapes and burns began to reveal itself. Everything ached. Isais’ body screamed as the irritation turned to pain; pain turned to agony. One wound hurt more than all the others. Berserker saw the great cut on its stomach then. It bled freely.
“Fuck.”
Berserker fell to the floor. Inside, Berserker thought he could feel Isais’ self begin to struggle weakly.
Up ahead the door clicked open. Berserker tried to crawl, but all strength had gone from the battered body.
Eyes closed; breath slowed.
Something warm began to swell and build inside Isais’s body then. Berserker’s eyes flickered open. There was a golden aura. It seemed to hover over Isais’ broken body. And then it grew, in both size and intensity. Shapes and colors flickered inside Berserker’s mind. They became words.
[https://i.imgur.com/k9yaCil.png]
The golden light bathed Isais’ body as the wounds began to close and heal over. Berserker rose and then laughed. The laugh rose in volume and power until it became the cackle of a person on the brink of insanity. For when Berserker looked inside, there was nothing. No memory of who, or what, it was. Only the lingering flavor of Isais on the edge of a consciousness otherwise empty of identity. And yet there were some things Berseker did know. It knew of Isais’s magic. It knew what these creatures that inhabited the sewer were. It knew to guide Isais.
And most strongly of all, it knew that somewhere, in the world above them, Berserker had a body.
[https://i.imgur.com/ARrRVss.png]
Name: ?????
Race: Human. Corrupted Twinsoul.
Power: Berserker
Skills
Martial: +3
Melee: 14
Adrenaline: 7
Leach: 4
Psyche: +2
Intuition: 8
Rage: 11
Intimidation: 4
Fortitude: +1
Strength: 8
Constitution: 6
Dexterity: 10
[https://i.imgur.com/EEF1JKR.png]
Berserker laughed again.
“Come back, brother. I do not want to remain here any longer.”
Somewhere in the deepest part of Isais’ body, something stirred. Berserker reached down and latched onto it, pulling it up and up. As Isais came back into awareness, so to did Berserker’s control fall away.
Feeling came back to Isais then. He found himself standing, and confusion momentarily flooded his mind. He blinked, pushed two fingers to his temple.
And then he vomited.
It was impossible to tell what his last meal had been for now it was all just a brown mush on the floor. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he paused. Was that blood he could taste? He quickly checked over his body. Despite throwing up, he found that surprisingly he felt good. Better than good. No wounds covered his arms or legs, only rips in his clothes that suggested there should have been wounds. There was a great tear in the abdomen of his tunic and his fingers scrambled at it, lifting the material. But no matter how much he probed and prodded, he could find no sign of a cut.
“What the Pasht happened?”
I leveled up.
“What in the…” Isais jumped. “Pasht’s balls! I’d forgotten about you! This was you?”
Aye brother. Ah, but it was a mighty battle.
“Battle?”
Behind you.
And then Isais saw the horrifying sewer creature. Even in death, the thing was hideous to look upon, He felt nausea build once more, and with it came recollection. Recollection of the sewer, of the rats and the skeleton and that… thing that lay before him.
An uncomfortable realization struck him then. “You killed it. You took control of my body,” Isais’s voice was low- as if he couldn’t believe the words he spoke.
You gave me control. I took nothing.
“But you can control my body. My body!” Isais felt outraged, violated.
If I couldn’t, you’d be dead.
It was hard to argue with that.
Besides, I'm always inside your body, the voice continued.
"Don't say it like that." Isais calmed himself, not wishing to dwell on the recent events. Already he had more questions than answers. “What is going on?” He changed the subject, his previous indignation falling away.
I don’t know, brother. But I know that somewhere out there lies my body. Perhaps if we can find it we can undo this mess.
Isais liked the sound of that very much. “Do you think it has something to do with that message? ‘Find her. Stop him.’” He quoted.
I think it has to.
“So what do we do?”
Well, I’m no expert but I suggest we find her. And stop him.
“Thanks for that,” Isais muttered. “I guess we start there?” he said, pointing to the big, perfectly round hole in the wall before them where once had been a door. Outside, were a set of blackened, broken stairs. And at their top, Isais was sure he could see a sleepy, golden ray of sunlight welcoming him forward.
Straightening his shoulders and clenching his jaw, Isais stepped outside into an unknown world.
End of Chapter Progress:
[https://i.imgur.com/ARrRVss.png]
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[https://i.imgur.com/OQBXL3E.png]