The feeling of my body cannibalizing itself in real time was peculiar. To me, it felt almost like hundreds of small worms were crawling through my flesh and bones, eating what they touched and leaving behind a sense of emptiness. I had a lot of time to think about it because it was the only thing I could make out through the sensory haze I was in as my arm was undergoing its regeneration. It wasn’t painful, at least not compared to the searing magic that was working its way towards what my proprioception told me was my right hand, but it was uncomfortable and disconcerting.
When the lump of magic finished in my hand, it split into five pieces and began moving down each of my fingers, compressing itself further and redoubling the pain I was in. The worms started to fade, slowing down first, and the last of them disappeared inside my rib cage a few seconds before the magic fizzled out at the tips of each of my fingers. Knowing I had to simply wait out the process, I relaxed my body and leaned back, not feeling the chair behind me as much as knowing its position by the shape my body took because of it. Soon enough my senses started to work properly again, and the first thing I felt was, once again, overwhelming hunger that washed away my rationality.
Salivating and suddenly on my feet, I licked my dry lips as I stared at the dead rat on the table which was being slowly covered by ants. No, my own voice said in my head, there’s a kitchen, I can go there to get food. No need to do something so disgusting. As though responding to my words more than my will, I felt my body lumber out of the chair and growl, then my field of vision swung around to focus on the door to the hallway. It took five tries before I managed to grab the handle and open it, nearly throwing it off its hinges by accident.
At some point I began running on my way to the kitchen, a fact that I only noticed when I passed by a servant who was walking in the same direction. When I reached the kitchen door I had to grab onto the frame to stop my momentum, which cracked some of the paint on the wall. After only two tries I got that door open, then fumbled my way inside, stomach simultaneously so empty I could barely think but also bubbling as though it wanted me to vomit. The pressure inside my head felt as though my skull was going to explode.
“Food,” I demanded before I was even sure the chef was present. Thankfully he was, and when our eyes met he looked terrified. “Now!” I yelled, unsure of why I was angry, slamming the wall beside me with my right arm for emphasis. The impact sounded wet and included a crunch, but I wasn’t in any state to care, nor was I concerned with how my outburst might be perceived.
“Just sit down and I’ll get it for you!” the chef panicked, gesturing frantically to the dining room door on the opposite side of the kitchen. With a growl, I marched across the room. On the way, I got distracted by the smell of meat and spices, and found that the source was a steak of some kind cooking on a flat grill. Before I knew it, I had grabbed the steak and shoved it in my mouth, then forced my way out into the dining room and sat down, hunching over my chosen table as I chewed on the half-cooked meat ravenously.
“Who-” someone yelled, forcing their way into the dining room from the other entrance with a weapon drawn. Half-eaten steak still in my mouth I reached for my sword with my right hand, fumbling and grabbing at air because it was still on my right hip. “Woah,” Koyl gasped, staring at me with wide eyes. A moment passed, then he sheathed his weapon and sat down at the table. “Are you…?” he tried to ask.
“Hungry,” I grunted, tearing off more of the meat and holding the steak with both hands again. “Can’t think, brain hurts.” As I said the words, my body’s recognition that something had entered my stomach seemed to soothe my temper, and I felt my muscles start to loosen. Koyl sat down at the table, looking at me with a concerned expression as I took two more large bites of the steak and swallowed them nearly whole.
“That’s… half raw,” he said.
“Don’t care,” I replied, breathing heavily. “Too hungry.” Still, once he mentioned it, I noticed that the meat had a distinct metallic taste to it that I started to find unpleasant. It didn’t stop me from finishing the steak though. Once I no longer had food, I felt a strange sensation, and heard popping and cracking to my right.
“Your arm…” Koyl began, suddenly reminding me of what I had been doing again. Like a rush of cold water, rationality returned to me, and I sat up straight. Koyl’s expression was one of mixed nervousness and disgust, I recognized it easily now that my brain had resumed normal function. His gaze, normally focused on the eyes of the person he was talking to, was instead on my arm, which I now noticed felt much wetter than it should have. Slowly, I raised it in front of me, and was shocked by the sight.
Firstly, the source of the metallic taste from the steak was probably not the meat itself, but my own blood, because my hand was covered in it. So was the rest of my arm, to a lesser extent, but what I could see in the portions that weren’t was just as gruesome. My normally gold-ochre skin was alabaster white from the elbow down in the places where it wasn’t entirely transparent. I could see my blood vessels and even parts of my muscles through the paper-thin layer that was protecting them from the outside environment. There was not a single hair or wrinkle anywhere on the regenerated portion of my limb, giving it a sickly smooth appearance.
Yet, none of that was the most striking part of the limb’s appearance. The bones were wrong, in almost every way, and not just in the forearm. The radius and ulna had a slight curve to them and rubbed together as I rotated my wrist. Worse, the sizes of my fingers were wrong, with my index and middle fingers being too short and my thumb far too thin, looking more like a finger itself. Only two of the digits, the middle finger and thumb, had nails, and both were small and flat. As I made a fist, I felt yet more bones grind up against each other, as if the cartilage in my knuckles was near-absent.
“Imperfect regeneration,” I said, accidentally thinking aloud and much more clearly. “Forcing the growth process to such an extreme speed most likely caused errors in the process to multiply, leading to a distorted end result.” I wiped my hand off on my clothing, not caring much about dirtying it, and finally looked back at Koyl, who was still staring at my arm, mouth partially agape.
“I don’t understand,” he finally said. “It hasn’t even been fifteen days.” The chef, finally done with my stew, pushed his way out of the kitchen carrying a large pot and slammed it down on the table in front of me. Only after the pot was out of his hands did he recognize Koyl, which caused him to go a bit pale and take a step back.
“I-” he began.
“It’s alright,” Koyl said. “Can you get a bowl for me as well?”
“Of course,” the chef replied, glancing at me, or more likely my arm that was still sitting on the table. “Would you like some rags to wash with as well?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Quickly, if you could.” Though I was less hungry than before, the smell of the stew was making my stomach growl, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait. The chef dashed back into the kitchen, then came out a moment later with two bowls, two spoons, and four wet towels, dumping them on the table and then leaving as quickly as he could. I wiped my hands quickly, then filled a bowl and began drinking it, not bothering to use a spoon. Koyl took a bowl as well but ate in a more civilized manner.
“Was this what you were working on in that laboratory?” Koyl asked once I finished my first bowl. “I had heard some rumors, but my father wouldn’t tell me anything.” As I filled up my second bowl, I observed as Koyl stared at the table, and noted that his eyes still had dark bags under them. “You’re not going to tell me either, are you?” he asked a second later.
“I’m sure your father had a reason to not say anything,” I replied.
“He always has a reason, just not always a good one,” Koyl replied, looking back up. “Have you gotten thinner?” Taking a pause from gulping down my second bowl, I used my left hand to tap around on a few areas of my body, then pulled my shirt up and saw that I could almost see every contour of my musculature.
“The regeneration must have used a lot more fat and muscle than I thought,” I replied, putting the bowl back to my lips. My right hand was dexterous enough to hold it on its own, but the angle felt off because of my forearm’s shape. I’ll have to break it later and correct that, I thought, I don’t even want to see the state of my heads-up display right now. Again, Koyl looked at the table, breaking eye contact.
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“I heard something about a ‘human test subject’,” he said, hesitation clear in his voice. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions or anything, but did you…?” My mouth was full of food, some of it requiring me to chew, so I ended up thinking about my reply for a little while longer than usual before speaking.
“No,” I lied, “I didn’t end up needing one. I just used my own body instead, it was more effective.” Aavspeyjh must have had his reasons to lie, I thought, I can speculate about them, but regardless of what they were, I’m sure he would prefer if I kept the details a secret. Koyl didn’t look up, but I saw a smile form on his lips.
“Good,” he replied. “I’m glad nobody got hurt.” For the rest of the meal he was silent, and not once did he look over at me, preferring to stare into his stew, or examine the walls. I wasn’t sure why, but my body, my instincts, told me I had done something wrong.
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Even after I corrected my forearm with a series of controlled breaks, the limb still drew many strange looks from the servants in the mansion. I tried to fix the pigmentation in my skin, but the process was slow, and the most I could manage was making the transparent sections cloudy enough that they looked about as white as the rest of it. In an effort to stop people from whispering and pointing when they thought I wasn’t paying attention, I grabbed a roll of thin black fabric from a storage room and wrapped the limb, then put a glove on my right hand.
One day after my regeneration, as I was eating in my bedroom to recover my strength, a young woman came into my room and told me that Aavspeyjh had requested my presence. I told her to inform him I’d be there as soon as I could, and immediately headed out to the lab. I didn’t have any human magic fuel left over, but I figured I should bring one of the makeshift syringes to demonstrate how they were used since he was looking to reproduce my work. After filling it halfway with my own blood, I sealed the top of the glass tube and picked out a good-looking snake tooth, sticking it to the side with wax.
I walked into Aavspeyjh’s office with the vial looking clean and well-dressed, and found that he had set aside his work and was waiting for me. With just a gesture, he invited me to sit at a circular table he had set out with a tea set on it, then sat across from me once I picked which of the padded chairs I preferred. Not wanting to waste time, I set the vial of blood on the table, then waited for him to speak.
“I see you have an arm now,” he said, reaching for the teapot. “Would you like some tea?”
“Is it a drug of some kind?” I asked. Aavspeyjh laughed, then poured some orange liquid into the cup in front of him.
“No,” he replied, pouring some for me as well. “Before we get into the discussion I have planned, I heard you spoke with a young woman the other night on my lawn. Would you care to tell me the details?” Setting the teapot back down, Aavsepyjh reached for his cup, then took a slow sip from it.
“That was Vaozey Svaaloyweyl,” I explained. “She was the woman who-”
“The one from Owsahlk,” Aavspeyjh interrupted. “Yes, actually, that makes much more sense now. The reception servants said she gave them trouble when they wanted her to remove her face covering, but if what Koylzmeyl told me is true then-”
“She has extensive burn scarring on the majority of her body, and prefers to conceal it,” I interrupted back.
“Would you say she is an effective fighter?” Aavspeyjh asked, sipping his tea again. “I was told she was brutal, but even a fool can break bones.”
“Against people who are not magically inclined, I believe she would be fairly effective,” I answered honestly. “However, most of her combat successes were due to having superior equipment and determination as far as I can tell, not necessarily superior technique. Against someone like me, or someone like that older man of yours who I had a spar with, she would have considerably more trouble.”
“And that brings us to our main topic,” Aavspeyjh smiled. “I assume you managed to acquire the human parts you were looking for and used them successfully. Does this vial have something to do with that?”
“This vial is merely for demonstration,” I explained, taking the item in question off the table and holding it up. “The actual vial I used was identical to this, but the blood inside was highly saturated with magic. I dissolved the contents of three human cores into it, essentially all of the magic in a person’s entire body.” I took the snake tooth off the side of the vial, then poked it blunt-end first through the wax seal. “It is important that the substance not be exposed to air for too long, so maintaining the seal is important.”
“Because the ‘magic fuel’ would leave the blood, correct?” Aavspeyjh asked.
“Correct,” I confirmed. “In small amounts, like what might leak in through this tooth, the effect would probably not be significant. However, during my tests I had the tooth already installed into the seal and plugged off with wax, only unplugging it once I was ready to perform the injection.”
“Injection?” Aavspeyjh asked. The word I had used in Uwrish was oylzhahtdeyl, which described the process of an animal using a stinger on a person, the closest equivalent I knew of.
“The word in my language would be injection,” I explained. “The tooth is inserted into a vein, then force magic is used to push the substance out into the bloodstream. For some reason it needs to be done quickly, or else the tooth will clog. I haven’t quite figured out why yet.”
“That blood is inert, is it not?” Aavspeyjh asked. “Can you demonstrate?”
“It is my blood, and yes,” I replied, taking the vial in my right hand and finding a vein on my left forearm, just under the elbow. While Aavspeyjh looked on, I slipped the tooth in, then forced the blood back into my vein. There’s no need to worry about an embolism as long as it’s done visually, I thought, it’s convenient that moving air with force magic is much harder than moving things I can see, at least in this case.
“Then, what happens?” Aavspeyjh asked. “Aside from gaining the ability to grow an arm back.”
“Would you like the full explanation or a summary?” I asked.
“Full, if you would,” Aavspeyjh replied. “Just explain as best you can, I’ll do my best not to interrupt unless it’s important.”
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“So, essentially, this substance can drastically increase general magic power and even enable those not talented with certain magics to use them through instinct,” Aavspeyjh summarized. “For healing, the body still needs nutrients, and if there are not enough the body may consume itself to fuel the process, but assuming that sufficient nutrients were present the only risk is a temporary malformation of limbs.”
“Essentially,” I echoed, finally taking a sip of my tea to wet my throat. The liquid was slightly bitter, though it had a secondary taste to it that wasn’t unpleasant. I think I would prefer this cold, I thought.
“And it took one whole person to grow back a forearm,” Aavspeyjh said.
“As I said, the efficiency could probably be improved through experience, but that ratio of magic to regeneration is probably a safe assumption for an unskilled recipient,” I replied. Aavsepyjh, filling his cup again, had a look on his face that I recognized from Koyl as being one of deep thought.
“Are you absolutely certain that air must be kept away from the substance during the manufacturing process?” he finally asked.
“To use my process, yes,” I replied. “There are likely simpler, less efficient processes that can be performed without the use of a low-oxygen environment. For example, simply adding the cores into a vial of blood without opening them along with some rocks, then agitating the mixture to pierce the organs once the vial was sealed may work. As well, drinking the substance quickly would be a viable alternative to injecting it, but would result in the loss of some magic fuel due to air contact.” Again, Aavspeyjh was silent, and as he sipped his tea I saw worry cross his face.
“This is quite dangerous,” he thought aloud.
“The substance could be made safer for general use by reducing the magic saturation,” I replied.
“No, not like that,” Aavspeyjh said. “What I mean is, this is the kind of knowledge that gets people killed. I have to admit, I was not entirely convinced of your ability to perform this… miracle, but now that you have done it I am more apprehensive than I thought I would be about utilizing it. I suppose the fact that the gods have not yet struck you down for it is a good sign, but I fear them less than I fear men.” The latter part of his statement had a twinge of sarcasm to it, but not enough to make it sound unserious.
“It could always be kept secret,” I suggested. “Nobody besides you and I knows the details of what I did. The servants are superstitious, we could spread a rumor among them to hide the truth. They are already gossiping about it.”
“My fears are not so much about being found out as the inventor of this substance,” Aavspeyjh explained. “In fact, they are quite the opposite. What I want to know is: Why have I never heard of this before now? The production method described is, with all respect to yourself and your achievement, not particularly difficult. Surely, someone in the world besides us must know of this. Yet, despite all the secrets I have collected, I am only learning of this now.”
“Optimistically, it could just be that you and I were lucky enough to discover it first,” I offered, not really believing my own words. Aavspeyjh smiled, then shook his head.
“I would love to believe that,” he replied. “However, it is more likely that we are merely rediscovering someone else’s work. Care to offer your pessimistic suggestions instead?”
“There are a variety of reasons this knowledge would be not widely known,” I said. “The most likely ones, however, are the following: It is either a state secret of the highest level with a penalty of death for disclosure, or those who discovered the knowledge first are using it to silence everyone else who comes across it.”
“Exactly my thoughts,” Aavspeyjh said, “and I cannot decide which one is worse for us.”