Years Since Creation: 3993
Location: Significance Plane, Space System, Furin
Keeping his body still, Darvon sent a strand of QE delving into the shining doyen Image of a crystal scroll floating next to him, and instantly got a wave of feedback. He sensed the complex mess that was a set of Invader Runes, the hole from exchanging yearning, and granted power of perfect bodily control. He even got a faint sense on how exactly he could imitate the latter, but that wasn’t his focus. So he dove deeper.
His strand of intent went past the outer mist of external impact around the Image, through the layers of significance that represented its path, and even cleared the well of laws to reach the true core of the Image. An empty space devoid of meaning, but full of potential which sang with the desire to form a contract. And so he began the process. And was promptly overwhelmed by billions of questions.
What would be taken? What would be given? How many atoms should be influenced in the physical change? How should the mind be altered? Should the power given be Extranar? How many limbs should be created? How many motes of impact should the man receive? What relationship would form? How will the new bond impact you? When should this take place? Should he understand what is happening? …
On an on it went, with him barely touching on one before he was hit by another. So many questions kept coming at him as the QE dove deeper, and his all to mortal mind was overwhelmed before he could move a hundredth of the way in. As if sensing his failure the space rebelled and had his Quintessence thrown right out of it, where it instinctively returned to coil around the grey hand of his Image.
Another failure.
“This is impossible. I don’t know why you insist that I can complete this branch first.” Darvon growled out as he rubbed his pounding head and opened his eyes to glare at the half a dozen researchers led by the purple skinned Intima poking and prodding him. “It’s abundantly clear that I don’t have the fourth dimensional mental capacity to form a bond like that.”
“Yet. You don’t have the capacity yet.” Intima said, her glowing violet eyes staring deep into his own silver pair. “With enough training and experience there is a slim chance that you will be able to form a bond, and then you will have an unending source of QE. We just need your nanites to reach the level that they can handle the more specific questions while you deal with the broad strokes.”
The researcher went on to complain for another five minutes with Darvon tuning her out after the first two. His headache hurt bad enough without the Extranar obsessed Azeta ranting about her perfect research method. Sure she may have been the foremost expert on all things Extranar in the entire plane, but that didn’t’ change that she was annoying. And wrong.
“What part of my nanites not being part of my path do you not understand? Before I alchemically alter them their only use is physical, and I won’t be able to do that until I at least reach paragon, which need I remind you I CAN’T.” Darvon snapped, standing up after nodding to the thirty-year-old Zhaber test subject sitting a few feet from him. No need to be rude to the one volunteer willing to help him in his research. “It would be better to focus on things I can actually influence, like Power Exchange.”
“Well if you hadn’t wasted a fifth of your energy on dyeing your hair we wouldn’t have to be so frugal, now would we? Honestly, the most priceless resource in the plane and you used it for–.” Intima shot back, only stopping when King Sol who was hovering towards the back of the cavern like lab put a hand on her shoulder.
“No need to get riled up. We are only four days into experimenting, to expect results now would be foolish.” The King said with a calming pat to the crazed paragon researcher, before turning to Darvon who had by then already begun messing with his nanites and ordering them to warn him about abnormal stress levels. “Though he may be right, it is likely time for us to focus on another branch. There are more ways to gather QE than just contracts.”
“Finally, I’ve had dozens of ideas on powers to gather–.”
“Not yet, we still have one test left to do.” Intima interrupted. “Your familiar bond could be leveraged to gather QE.”
Darvon frowned at that, though he did see the reasoning. “I see that, but I don’t want to risk Saria on something as risky as this. For all we know me merely taking QE instead of exchanging could lead to her losing something vital.”
“Well that just means you have to give her something don’t you? And honestly if you want to take the girl with you to another plane, than she needs more power regardless. Invasion Runes would be a grand gift.” King Sol piped up from the side, as the researchers around them kept poking Darvon with a dozen different instruments while writing down the results on various illusion sones which they merged at a grand desk where a floating image of his body covered in diagrams was.
“You know that I can’t replicate those, its beyond me to comprehend the infinitude of laws that Qrumin grasps.”
“Ah, but that is where the contract would come in. While you can’t understand it, it should be easy enough for you to establish it as a rule of your contract that she receive an imitation of it.” Intima said.
Much as he hated to admit it to the caustic researcher, he could see her logic. From what little he was able to wrap his head around the billions of questions thrown at him during the contract process, he could establish a set of rules for it to follow. Hopefully with Saria the majority of the rules would already be formed due to the bond, and so he could skip on the hard part. Maybe it would work. Maybe.
“I can agree to this. But not yet, I want to test Power Exchange before I waste more QE on uncertain attempts like this.” Darvon said, raising his hand to stop the wave of complaints he could feel rising from Intima. “I know you want to go step by step, but that’s not how my path works. I test and absorb laws at a rapid pace, to keep stalling would be pointless. We can come back to this when I have two strands left. I want some new powers.”
“That works great.” King Sol said with a clap that startled the skittish researchers. “Now how about we do some combat training to get rid of this stress. You need some more progress with your new elementals before we field test the three of you later.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Darvon nodded, though he had been looking forward to doing a bit more research. “Let’s head up them.”
Turning to see if Intima would blow up again, Darvon was happy to see that she was instead absorbed with the schematics the researchers had thrown up on the wall. It looked like a series of dozens of graphs of his brain waves, and mental essence fluctuation. Fascinating stuff, which he himself wanted to dive into, but seeing the expectant smile on King Sol’s face he just sighed and started walking up the stairs with the necromancer following behind him.
“So do you have any idea on what type of power you would like to absorb?”
“I think my main interest will be trying to turn myself into more of an Old One, so powers along those lines for sure.” Darvon said as he pulled out a small stone cube covered in illusion engravings from his pocket after exiting from the lab to enter a massive underground space filled with hundreds of different rooms full of Azeta and other researchers. “Just based off the list of Zhaber powers you guys gave me I already have plenty of candidates. The most straight forward one being Quin in Duria with Detect Meaning, though there are a few more esoteric powers like Elevation or Mental Alteration which are also appealing.”
King Sol smiled next to him, while waving away a group of researchers who bowed upon seeing him. “Seems we will have to contact these people soon.”
“Yeah, which means I will likely need to do a bit of travel in order to physically reach them. But I was meaning to go to Duria anyway. I have a few old contacts of my father who might be willing to spare some interesting research anyway. I’ve been on the verge of completing the potions branch for years now, though that will likely have to wait until after I return from the other plane.” Darvon said, as they walked up a final set of silver stairs towards a massive door which was guarded by a dozen scaled lizards along its exterior.
“I’m glad you know prudence when it comes to laws. I doubt I would have been able to handle the temptation of paragon as easily.” King Sol said with a fatherlike smile as he pushed open the silver door which led out into the compound. “Now how about we do some movement training? Use only Clot to reach the training grounds, and I’ll wait for you there.”
“Sure.” Darvon said, half focused on reading the list of names floating above the list with their attached powers and location. He had no idea where the Azeta had gotten such sensitive information, but he wouldn’t question his good luck. “Would be good bond training anyway.”
“Excellent.” King Sol said, and with a twitch of his hand summoned a ten-foot-tall black raven which he hopped on and flew off with in a burst of speed. “See you there!”
“Show off.” Darvon muttered, though he did pocket his stone and turn his mental focus inwards towards his new additions.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
On the bottom of his spine three vertebrae had been altered to be an artificial biological material which perfectly merged with his body and held elementals through a careful integration of different materials reacting together. The Azeta had grown quite interested in the process and had helped him get the surgery done within a mere afternoon, with them quickly imitating the implantation on Saria as well. It had been surreal to see someone actively use one of his schematics, but he couldn’t deny the pride he felt when they oohed at his invention. He was sure that they had varieties of it, but his had the special property of housing any elemental. Like the three floating within him.
On the very bottom of his spine was Vigil, who let out a muted messaged that he was busy absorbing essence before turning inward. He was a lazy bugger all the way through, but he had been doing his fair share of growing after being given a couple paragon level grief essences. Hopefully within a few weeks he would grow powerful enough that he would be able to fully shatter a mind of a paragon instead of merely distract one.
Above him was Kaiser, his command elemental who sent a request for fresh command emotion before turning back to absorbing essence. He was a weird creature, with horrifying tastes that Darvon had spent the last couple days slowly tempering out. It was a slow process with little early results, to the point where if it were any other type of elemental he would have simply replaced him. But what was done was done, and he would take advantage of the bastard one way or another. Maroc had assured him of that much.
Above him was Clot, his abyssal blood elemental, which he called out from its home to escape his body. It did so in a rush of dark red light which poured out of his pores in a wave of ooze which formed into a man-sized lamprey with void like skin and shining red teeth. He was a monster in the truest sense of the word, and a completely artificial being at that. From what Maroc had told him, Clot was the result of thousands of experiments on blood elementals to expand their power, and the sole working abyssal elemental in the plane. He was extremely powerful and a perfect fit for Darvon who had been lacking in more complex physical damage.
“Alright boy let’s get going. Don’t want to leave the king waiting.” Darvon said, internally commanding Clot to wrap around his waist through his elemental binder, which the elemental did after only a little nudging.
Wrapped around his waist, Darvon could feel Clot’s abyssal skin in all its smooth and gooey glory. It was truly a surreal feeling, which Darvon enjoyed for a few moments as he pet the elemental, before ordering it to fly him forward.
“Holy shit!” he yelled as the elemental tightened fully on his chest and with one burst lifted him right up into the air above the compound. At this vantage point he could see the entirety of the forest, with its many caverns leading to the labs, majestic statue gardens, dozens of houses, and the vast training ground which he commanded Clot to head towards.
A burst of speed sent him flying forward and left him panicked as he felt himself losing control. He knew that what he was doing was perhaps the laziest method of flying with an elemental, and that directly controlling their energy like Maroc did lead to a much smoother flight, but he had no patience. He needed to master QE sooner rather than later, or he would never be able to survive exploring a new plane. Not the least because Maroc would kill him before he ever allowed him to leave without a QE law mastered.
It was with those distracted thoughts that he arrived above the practice field and was met with a loud screech as the raven Sol had ridden on flew straight at him with murder in its eyes, its back empty and claws outstretched.
Clot slammed him right, at the same time Darvon’s intent ordered it left, leaving him frozen and fully open to the attack of the incredibly fast bird. Its claw dug straight through his clothes, leaving a large hole in his chest which shocked him awake enough to instinctively send out both readied bolts from his chest.
“CAW!” the raven screamed yet stood still as the mundane bolts his its claws with little to no result.
Seeing the red eyes twist anger at his attack, Darvon tried to fly back but was completely ignored by Clot who instead fully dropped him into the sand and tried to bite the raven to no result.
As he roughly landed on the ground below him all he saw was Clot getting torn apart by the bird above him, and then turn to focus on him.
He was so fucked.
Before the bird could do anything else, it was swallowed by a black portal behind it, at the same time that a slow clap came from a dozen meters next to him.
“Truly an amazing showing Darvon! You hit the guy after only getting half your chest torn into!” King Sol said with a shit eating grin from a lounge chair that Darvon was positive had not been there moments before. “Now all you need to master is doing actual damage, and you will be a perfect combatant!”
Rubbing his sore chest, which he saw was somehow unharmed, Darvon walked over towards the necromancer while calling Clots dismembered form to merge back together and float next to him. “Yeah, yeah, I know I messed up. No need to rub it in.”
“All the contrary, right after a mess up is the perfect moment to rub it in. I have found that people by far work best when under the pressure of humiliation.” King Sol said as Darvon pulled up a chair next to him, one that was facing the field of sand filled with obstacles and targets of all sorts. There were thousands of simple Zhra like targets made of engraved wood, but here and there he saw a metal puppet covered in powerful engravings that gave him a sense of a paragon. “Plus it helps get people in the correct headspace for training if nothing else.”
“I can see that, though I could do without the terror of death personally.” Darvon said, glancing over to the cross-legged Saria sitting in front of a rock which she was giving a death stare. Seemed she was also practicing. “Now I imagine you have an actual idea on what I can practice outside of dodging an insane raven?”
King Sol chuckled at that, though he didn’t say no. “I was thinking we start with some basic attacks using your new elementals, and then move on to some flight training where you can figure out how to smooth out your movements. Relying purely on others to fly you won’t work forever.” King Sol said as he reached over to the side of his bench where a small bucket full of crystals hung and sacrificed them into the core of the array which Darvon noted was conveniently below him. “We’ll start with Clot since Kaiser is already so similar to Vigil.”
Raising his eyebrow at the now shifting puppet trundling over to the empty sand pit in front of them, Darvon just nodded and stood up while calling the nearby Clot to collapse into its energy form next to him, which he casually twisted into a whip. He’d start simple.
Striding forward using the battle footwork Maroc had drilled into him, Darvon smoothly entered the nearest puppets attack range and with a slight crouch dodged its slow head punch. Feeling the air part above him, Darvon twitched his wrist and with a barely heard woosh slammed Clot into the puppet, which immediately fell apart in two hissing sections. It’s engravings and woods each collapsed into a pile of black goo which flowed into the whip and neatly extended Clot who was already mid-way through tearing another puppet apart.
Dozens fell in a whirlwind around Darvon, most destroyed before they could even reach him, while the few who did he neatly dodged around with careful footwork. It was incredibly easy, especially with the occasional mental boost the nanites provided when one got a little too close to hitting him. His blood pumped, his mind ached, and soon even his wrist hurt from the constant movement, but more than all of that Darvon felt alive. Each careful twist and movement left his blood singing. He enjoyed combat when he was winning.
And then he wasn’t.
“Alright easy mode is over, now they’ll move at around 1.5 times your speed.” King Sol said from the side, as he fidgeted with the engravings near him. “Also please avoid fully destroying these guys, while they are cheap to make, it does take a while to source.”
Before Darvon could answer the waves of puppets in front of him ran at him in a burst of speed he was not prepared for, leading to him being hit by a dozen fists within moments, Clot destroying a few but failing at actual defense. It was a shock that snapped him out of his lackadaisical state and pushed him to activating his nanites to full capacity.
The world around him slowed, his body now fully under his control as he dodged each punch sent forward, yet as he went to send another command to Clot he felt the thread of intent connected to the binder moving nowhere near as fast as he was. Consequently every attack he sent out felt as slow as molasses, forcing him to alter the body of the elemental to properly match his boost. Instead of a single stringed whip Clot shifted into a sinuous nine tailed version, which would independently hit a puppet and absorb the corrupted essence to grow longer and split further.
After a full minute of attacking and dodging, the puppets began to again fall without struggle, with the whip destroying a full dozen every second. Darvon felt like a god, but he knew that it wouldn’t last, as his nanites were already sending waves of overheating messages at him. These temporary boosts were not what they were meant for, as they were forced to act as synaptic conductors which channeled electricity every second. No they were meant to provide a constant improvement while fixing any problems, yet still they held on long enough for Darvon to collapse panting on the floor with every puppet King Sol had sent destroyed before him.
“Good job, I can see Maroc’s influence in the way you attack. Clearly you are pretty used to manipulating the malleable elemental form.” King Sol said from his chair as he munched on a sandwich a nearby servant had brought over. “You did get hit a few too many times, and needlessly dodged around head strikes when your hair is already invulnerable.”
“Yeah, I still need to get over that hang-up.” Darvon said, waving over a servant with a glass of water, before turning back to King Sol, noting that Saria was heading over to the forest with Vadim as he did so. “Any tips would be appreciated.”
King Sol just waved his hand and summoned a single illusionary dark figure from the portal near him which promptly set itself into a fighting stance next to him. “Honestly there is no real solution to that aside from just focused training to drill in your new abilities. Which is where this Zhra shade comes in. It’s as smart as a doyen with paragon level combat skills who can tailor its actions to match all training orders you want to give it.”
Darvon’s eyebrows climbed higher up as he stared at the seemingly simple shade before him. “It’s that versatile? Where did you even get such a powerful undead from? I thought you focused on mass produced shades, with the occasional powerful zombie mixed in?”
“I didn’t personally make this one, I actually received it from one of Mythos Orlan’s inheritances. It was part of my rewards package for taking over a continent on the Necromancer plane.” He explained pointing at the shade as he did so. “While he isn’t a core aspect of my powerset, he has been incredibly useful for training Azeta youths.”
Darvon nodded at that, his surprise at the power of the shade gone the moment he heard the Mythos name. While Orlan had succumbed to the curse Qrumin set on the family a mere hour after becoming a Mythos, that didn’t mean he hadn’t spent decades at the peak of sovereign.
“I’m actually fairly surprised they let you come back to this plane King Sol. I would think that the sovereigns would be fully focused on producing as much cannon fodder as they could.”
“That is actually why I am here, to deliver the latest batch to the current battlefield.” Sol said with a slight frown. “Only reason they haven’t sent me there yet is because they are preparing some ‘perfect’ moment to perfectly counter Inspirations robot armies.”
Darvon leaned forward with an interested look as he heard that. “How is the war going on? I had heard that they were in the process of conquering the Magitech system before being stopped by Sovereign Gurin and Venul.”
Sol’s face turned stormy at that. “It’s going okay, they have managed to conquer the wasteland planet of Minos and are using its endless metals as fuel for their robot furnaces but are otherwise blocked from continuing their rampage.”
“How are only two sovereigns blocking them though? I thought Inspiration had dozens to throw at them. Also what do you mean their furnaces? Are those automatic–.”
King Sol quickly raised his hand to stop Darvon’s excited rambling, his stormy frown turning into a weary smile. “Look Darvon, I don’t really care to talk about the war right now. I spend all my time in the Necromancy plane discussing it, so how about we just focus on training for now.”
Frozen with his mouth mid rant, Darvon clacked it shut with a little grimace at his social mess up. He should have known to stagger his questions better instead of inundating the King. If he had done so he might have actually received some solid info. He had already spent way too long wallowing in ignorance about his eventual foe.
“Of course.” Darvon said, and with a burst of will called out Kaiser from his home, ordering it form a halo around his head, then ordered Vigil to wrap around his mind, and finally had Clot form most of its mass into a thin crystalline black armor while leaving a single whip in his hand. “Let’s get to it.”
“Wonderful.” Sol said with an interested look in his eye as he stared at his armor, before turning to the Shade next to him. “Now I’ve set up the trainer to react to mental attacks as if they are simple blasts, which is the most it can really do due to its nature and set it to around two times your base speed. It can fly and will do so. Any injuries it places on you will feel real, but don’t worry, they are only illusions. Now as to what I want you to do…”
A small sigh escaped Darvon’s lips at the excited King in front of him. This would be a long day.