She cultivated an aura of fear and awe in her fellow elves. Vindicia scoffed at their attention. They hadn't cared for her when Nefas broke her again and again. They hadn't wanted to be her when they turned away from the blood and bruises. Now they dared to lust after her like she was just like any other woman. She was better than all of them. Her hatred tempered into a white-hot blade that she would plunge into the heart of Woodhaven.
The pain in her body heightened, pulling her from her fevered memories. She could feel something alive coiling and writhing within her womb. She could very well die here, and that would be the ultimate irony. Her parents had been killed in a similar situation. Well, they weren't eaten alive from the inside by a parasite. She thought morbidly. She bitterly laughed out loud from her own morbid joke. The laugh made her cough and blood splattered the ground where she lay.
No, but there was some cosmic irony of her dying in a pool of her own blood. It would happen just as all of her plans were becoming a reality. Even if she hadn't predicted how they would eventually culminate. Her thoughts were muddled with the pain and stress of her present situation. She wondered if she could be happy once the council and the Guardians had died.
In truth, she hadn't thought about what she was going to do after. There had never really been an after to consider. She had thought that she would die in the attempt and then she could finally be at peace with her parents in the Beyond. Now that she was faced with the prospect of a future, she didn't know how to feel.
To her, the irony lay in her defeat. Slate had been the first person to ever defeat her in actual combat. She had even used her magic because she had the arrogant intention to defeat the magical prodigy of the village, Merus with his own tools. Instead, she was soundly beaten, and instead of killing her, he offered her a way forward. He was going to give Vindicia her past and her future, and that was a priceless gift. It was more valuable than he probably realized. No, Vindicia reflected, he was precisely the kind of man who knew the value of his position. He was a force of nature worth following.
She had put on a brave face to Slate, but even now, she was scared. She had yoked herself to him, and he didn't even realize it. She had nothing left to live for, and he had everything to live for. She could see it in his eyes when she gave herself to him. He saw her, but he also saw her past. There was a type of fire in his eyes that she knew wasn't in her own. It had faded when he had finished, but she knew now, more than ever, that she wanted that fire for herself. She wanted to feel again. She wanted to be alive again instead of the cold dead thing that walked in her skin and smiled with her face while it planned to destroy everything that Woodhaven stood for.
The pain wracked her body and agonized moan escaped her bloody lips. She didn't like to show weakness, but if she were dying alone and in this forest, then it just didn't seem to matter that much anymore. The agony grew as she felt it coalesce into a point on her stomach. She looked down at her abdomen and observed the silhouette of a creature pressing against her skin from below the surface. She wanted to throw up. This wasn't the beauty of childbirth, it was the infection of a parasite.
Her shrieks echoed through the forest as the Scourgling burst from her abdomen. Covered in gore, the almost four-foot eyeless snake slid itself from her body cavity and tumbled to the forest ground. Vindicia sobbed as the pain seemed overwhelming, but her body's endorphins refused to let her pass out. She watched in horror as the Scourgling made a series of gargled hisses. She felt removed from her body like a spirit drifting overhead and was sickened as the Scourgling issued a death rattle and grew still. It had died as surely as it had killed its mother.
The blood loss was soon to kill her, and the Guardian knew it. She would get to see her parents again. Part of her lamented the fact that she wouldn't get to see Slate change the world. The little girl in her was relieved to let her burden go. Just before she was to close her eyes for the last time, a visible wave of power passed through the forest. It overtook her with its cleansing light. She didn't know it, but Slate had completed his quest from Lucidus.
She found herself in a realm made entirely of bright, cleansing light. A woman sat on a large gilded throne that looked as if it floated in the endless space. With an imperious wave of her hand, the scenery changed, and Vindicia found herself on the ground in what seemed to be an elegant palace throne room. The stones underneath her feet where brilliant white with an iridescent sheen. Sizeable white stone columns shot through with gold and opal lined a pathway straight to where the throne rested upon a pedestal. Perhaps it was a trick of magic, but Vindicia could not see where the columns met the ceiling. It was shrouded in darkness, and white flames flickered in the darkness like stars.
She was jarred from her dazed observation. A voice filled with both the authority and warmth of a mother reverberated through the dream-like realm. "Come here, child. Let me see you." It said.
Vindicia rose to her feet and silently marveled at her lack of pain. She walked to the woman waiting for her. The walk seemed shorter than it should have been for the size of the room. In mere seconds, she found herself in front of the queen. That was what she had to be, Vindicia had seen no one who could claim better claim the title. She was beautiful and regal perched on her throne. Vindicia's heart swelled and realized that this woman was everything she wished she could be. She knelt on the ground and pressed her forehead to the floor.
"There is no need for such obsequiousness from you," the woman spoke again. Vindicia stood again, her body language betraying the fear and awe she felt towards this woman who must be the Lord of Light.
The woman laughed gently. "You're quicker than even Slate was," Vindicia said nothing and waited patiently. The Lord must have brought her to this realm for a reason. She thought that maybe she had died and this was the Beyond. She looked around to see if her parents were waiting somewhere at the edges of the throne room.
"No, you're not dead. In fact, I have come to rescue you. I'm offering you a choice." Lucidus told her gently.
Vindicia met her eyes, "what am I to choose?" she asked respectfully.
"Well," the deity paused to consider. "I must say that I have done you a disservice child. It was through my influence that Slate decided to take you on the forest floor. It was my original intention for you to be consumed by the Scourgling you hosted."
The deity's eyes turned a bright gold that shone with an inner light. "I was mistaken, and this will be the only time you'll hear me say that." She paused and looked down at the mortal as if daring her to say something about her making a mistake.
Vindicia wisely held her tongue, and Lucidus continued. "After looking through your life, I see great potential in you. Instead of letting the Scourgling subsume your body and destroy you, I allowed it to die upon birth. If you agree, I will use its form and allow you to become part of my Scourge while retaining your own personality. Unfortunately, your level will need to be reset from thirty-eight to twenty."
Vindicia was proud of her level, there weren't many people who had the same level as her age. To the best of her knowledge, she was the highest leveled Guardian. Levels had never done anything except act as an approximate evaluation of the acquired experience of a warrior. In exceptional cases, it determined when a class could be obtained. Classes provided magical bonuses to the skills and activities which fell within their purview. A Guardian itself was a unique class only found within the Wyldwood, and it bifurcated ordinary warriors from the enhanced defenders.
Lucidus read her mind. "The Guardians are mine child, they have been twisted to a nefarious purpose by your council, but they've always been mine. Silvys has merely prepared the way for me. The Wyldwood is his last sacrifice to put into motion his revenge centuries in the future. We are that revenge." She smiled. "We're the Scourge to retake the world and punish those that banished us from this world." She studied the woman in front of her. "Yes, you will lose your level, but you'll gain so much more. You'll become a Scourge Consort. The first of her kind and the most
powerful of my creatures outside of my Heritor."
Vindicia considered the proposition carefully. It would be unfortunate to lose her class and levels, but Vindicia felt like there was something the Lord of Light wasn't mentioning. "What is the alternative, my Lord?"
Lucidus gave her a wicked smile, betraying for a fraction, the kind of deity that would create the Scourge in the first place. "You die," she said simply.
Vindicia shrugged. "Seems like a simple choice to me."
"Quite." The god replied. "Fortunately, I reward those who serve me. I will make you a Scourge Consort. You and Slate will be the progenitors of the army that will take this world for me. You will not feel the pain of childbirth, your power will be overwhelming to your opponents, and one day…" Lucidus paused and gestured to the throneroom around her. "...all of this will be yours."
Vindicia bowed lowly. "Thank you."
"One more thing," the deity said offhandedly. "When Slate stepped upon this path, he decided to rename himself. He wanted a name that would become an identity. Something his enemies would say in hushed tones and his allies would say with fervor. Did you want to do the same?"
Vindicia paused to consider the question. This would be her chance to leave her past behind and create a new world with Slate. She nodded to Lucidus. "Slate implies a wiping away of the old, and creation of the new. My holy mandate from you is to create the Scourge. You want the Scourge to be more populous than grains of sand. You want me to cover the world with my children."
A strange fire lit up Vindicia's eyes. "They will call me Shale."
Before she was ejected from Lucidius' realm a prompt entered her vision.
You have been transformed into a Scourge Consort. This race is altered every time the Heritor chooses mutations for the leadership caste of the Scourge. Consorts possess the ability to create ten Scourgling eggs with each coupling. Consorts are the ultimate warriors of the Scourge and serve as a last line of defense for the Heritor. As such, the Consort evolution path has a mix of magical, ranged, and melee might and can expect better fertility and magic the further they evolve.
When she returned to the Wyldwood, she stood up and studied her new body. She resembled a Saurian that had been kicked up a notch. She was a bipedal, digitigrade creature that was covered in beautiful silver scales. Looking down, her elf-like limbs had been transfigured into lean muscles that ended in six claws. Testing each one, she realized that her claws and talons had the same level of dexterity.
Her body thrummed with power, and she flexed her figure experimentally. She noticed a long sweeping tail extend behind her with the same wicked blade the Slate had utilized with deadly effect. She grinned at the new weapon and realized her mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. She ran her tongue across them experimentally and found that her tongue had maintained its transformed state.
She took off into a sprint and shifted to all fours as she flew through the forest. She leapt over obstacles, and her tail compensated automatically to allow her to change directions abruptly. She was so powerful and light that she could feel the force pulling on her skeleton so hard that she could hear the bones creak with strain.
She was exhilarated beyond measure. This form was the first promise that Slate had kept. As she raced for the village of Woodhaven, she knew the rest were soon to come.
Chapter 11: A New Council
Slate came to consciousness sitting in a large throne hewn from rough stone. Within, he spotted striations of gold and opal. The throne shone with an inner white fire that both warmed him and invigorated him. It was uncivilized, beautiful, and full of power. It was a perfect symbol for the Scourge. A system message flitted across his vision as he studied the throne.
Congratulations! You are currently under the effect of the Light of Lucidus. While sitting on your throne, magic is easier to shape, and it is empowered by the Lord of Light.
Well, that's one question answered. Slate thought. He looked up from the throne and studied the scene in front of him. Where they had once been within a large tree, it would seem that was no longer the case. They were in a small white stone room, clearly underground, that looked as it doubled as a ritual chamber. The room wasn't very large. It was about a quarter the length of a football field and had the same approximate width.
On either side of the path were three pillars that reached up to hold the roof above them. Unnatural darkness shrouded the very tops so that the exact meeting of the column to ceiling was hidden. Small white flames resembling stars in the night sky moved in slowly in esoteric patterns. The columns themselves resembled the same content as his throne. Their even, white glow lit the room easily enough.
Two rectangular tables bracketed the path, and each held six chairs, all of them were filled with members of the elder's council. This was clearly where Slate's advisors were to sit. In between the two tables with enough space to walk on either side, a shallow wading pool stretched the length of the tables. Slate could see the symbol of Lucidus, a stylized sun made from twelve individual flames, emblazoned in gold at the bottom.
Bowing in front of him, on one knee with a fist clenched to his chest, Sumnu waited to be addressed. Slate lazily noticed him and let his gaze wander around the room. He met the eyes of each elder, and they all had a look of excitement on their faces. He activated his mana vision and started to take notice of the exits to the room in preparation for his next steps.
Contrary to his expectations, the light-dappled marble that made up most of the room extended his mana sense rather than inhibiting it. He could sense multiple floors beneath him laid out in palatial style. The access was a small marble door that fit seamlessly into the wall behind his throne. Above him, a great ziggurat stretched. It was similarly constructed to his throne room, but it had a massive statue of Lucidus with religious paraphernalia surrounding it. Slate was curious, but exploring the building could wait until later.
Now that he had caught his bearings and assured himself that he was reasonably safe. He made ready to address the men and women gathered around him. Before he opened his mouth, a soft clicking sound extended from the stairs in front of him. His tail rose to the ready at his feet, despite his lazy occupation of the throne. He still didn't say anything, his instincts telling him to wait.
What descended down the stairs almost made all reason flee his head. Lord of Light above, she's beautiful even now. He thought. As she hit the bottom step, she looked up and met his eyes. Where his where a brilliant gold, her's were a shining silver the color of moonlight. They weren't the black pools he knew from before, but he could recognize her. His parasitic mind ached to cross the distance and marvel over her new figure, but they were both aware of the show they needed to put on.
Shale sauntered down the center path. As she did, elders on both sides drew away from her in their seats. She carried a deadly aura about her like a fine lady's perfume. She was a leaner, more feminine version of Slate. She didn't possess any of the typical womanly traits found on a humanoid, there were no breasts to speak of, no long hair, or exposed vulva but her sensuality couldn't be denied. It manifested itself in the sway of her hips, the grace of her frame, and the sexual energy in her stride. She exuded vivacious energy and lethal intent. As she walked around the central pool, she met Slate's eyes and smiled flirtatiously. She could see the naked admiration on his face, and it pleased her. A beautiful woman liked to be appreciated for her beauty, and a warrior wanted to be recognized for their prowess. Shale was both.
As she approached where he sat, Slate noted the slight differences between them. She was not so broad-shouldered and thick-necked as he. However, her slender yet muscular frame did not imply weakness. Her hide was silver with an opalescent sheen in contrast to Slate's own burnished gold. Her tail flicked around her body like she was an amused cat as she drew up before him.
Sumnu quickly moved out of her way and moved to stand behind the throne. Sumnu shot him a quick glance when the man approached and decided his position was acceptable. Shale occup
ied the place that Sumnu had vacated. She bowed lowly, and Slate stood to greet her. He slightly bowed, barely more than the inclination of the head. Slate was the sovereign power here, and they were both publicly recognizing it. He was pleased with her show of deference. It gave him hope that they could continue to work closely with each other. As he did so, status messages appeared in his vision.
Congratulations! When any two of the Scourge are in close proximity, the following effects go into action:
-Scourgemind
-Scourge Shield
-Minor Regeneration
Immediately following the message, Slate realized that his mind felt like it had just gained an entirely new compartment. He could feel everything that Vindicia had experienced while he had been in his own dream realm with the Lord of Light. Slate realized that if he wanted, he could crawl through all of her memories, andher experiences, since she had transformed into one of the Scourge. It was similar to his connection to Merus but more intimate. He was assuming that by her face, she was doing the same.
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