A Flesh Golem's Ascension

by John Domus Cruo

  I felt a warm liquid starting to drip from my ears. It felt as if I were being crushed by the weight of her words.

  "I will depart immediately!" was all I was able to muster.

  The pressure in the room seemed to decrease. I chanced a glance at the massive portrait. It's hands had returned to a neutral position and the glow had faded from its wings.

  I quickly got to my feet. It would take several months to get there by horseback and I needed to gather people along the way, adding months on top of that. This would be the first crusade recorded in the past millennium, and I would be at its head.

  Chapter 18: Rudely Interrupted — John

  "Master, wake up! You died!" I heard Mors' frantic voice.

  My eyes shot open. I couldn't see much as there was a thick layer of fog on the ground. What the hell happened? It was suddenly freezing in here. I felt Lina on my chest. She wasn't moving. I felt Leera beside me. She was stiff. She was dead!

  I tried to sit up but it was too difficult. I was chilled to the bone. I barely made it up onto my elbow. I looked around in a panic. I could just make out some light from the entrance as a massive set of multi-spiked horns pierced the mist. A creature stood there, a thick curtain of fog billowing from its mouth.

  From what I could tell it was tall and emaciated. I could clearly see the bones of its chest and its inhuman skull. It had pale yellow eyes that cast a sickly glow.

  It scanned the room, its eyes resting on Bob.

  "Mors, what on earth is that?"

  "From what the souls tell me, that is a wendigo. It's an unbound, undead creature with cannibalistic tendencies. It's greedy, lives to eat, and naturally occurs in areas suffering from famine or drought. It is formed when the souls of those that died of hunger devour each other until they are big enough to converge on a vessel and distort it into a wendigo."

  I focused on trying to raise my body temperature with Fleshcrafting.

  The wendigo reached its long, sickly fingers down towards Bob. It picked him up and inspected him before opening its mouth and biting Bob in half. I could hear a loud crunch as the creature chewed Bob's left side, bone and all.

  I felt fury surging inside me. I couldn't move. I attempted to shout, but only a strained whimper came out.

  The wendigo's eyes shot over to me. It glared at me as it took another bite of Bob, now only leaving part of his torso and head.

  I felt my rage build once more. I can overcome death, but if it eats Bob, then he is gone. My first friend since I got here will be taken from me.

  I closed my eyes and used the calming effect. I need to act quickly and calmly. I couldn't move, so what could I do?

  Wait, I think Mors said it was an unbound undead.

  I opened my eyes once again just as the creature was about to bite Bob's head off.

  I activated Soul Steal.

  Green flames burst from my eyes. The creature stopped mid-chew and seemed to suddenly have an 'oh, shit' expression on its face. It dropped Bob and started to turn away. Too late, you bastard! It had a tremendous soul flame. As its soul flew inside me the wendigo's body fell lifelessly to the ground.

  It's so damn cold here. I hoped the fog would dissipate now that the source of it was gone.

  I lay there still for a moment in case there were any more surprises coming. I could barely move. I crawled over to the parts pile and began eating. No matter how rotten, I needed to increase my body heat. I feasted on the minuscule amount of flesh that was there.

  I looked around. Lina was still frozen to my chest. Her soul flowed into me first. I looked over to Bob's small remains, and his soul floated over to me. Then I looked at Leera. It had even tried to take her from me. I felt the rage building inside me once more, but I suppressed it. Her soul flew over to me and entered my core.

  I closed my eyes while Feast passively raised my body temperature.

  I talked to Bob's soul.

  A green spectral Bob formed before me.

  He looked around as if confused. "Boss? What the hell happened?"

  I told Bob about what had happened with the wendigo and about his current physical state.

  Bob put his hand to his chin. "Damn, Boss! That's one messed up way to go."

  I informed him that I may not be able to remake him exactly as before, but Bob suddenly seemed excited.

  "So this thing was actually able to kill everyone, including you, without any of us noticing?" he sounded somehow impressed by the wendigo.

  "Yeah, my best guess is that it flooded our cave with its fog, then proceeded to come inside for a snack. I, however, can be undead as long as it doesn't pierce my core, so I was able to steal its soul." It was my best theory as to how I’d survived.

  Bob seemed to contemplate things for moment before speaking. "Boss, I want you to make a new body for me out of the wendigo. I want to be able to kill more than just vermin."

  I thought about what Bob was saying. "But what about Lina? Would you abandon her?"

  Bob had a sad smile. "I'm sorry, Boss, but Lina and I aren't going to work out like that. She's basically my little sis."

  Now that I thought about it, I supposed they were made out of the same parts, from the same goblins. I hadn't investigated the wendigo corpse yet, so I didn't know what options I had available.

  "OK, Bob, I will see what I can do. You just sit tight here, and I'll make you something awesome."

  I closed the soul window. I was glad that Bob survived mostly intact.

  I opened my eyes and canceled Soul Steal.

  Most of the fog had started to clear and I was able to move a little better. I crawled over to the wendigo corpse.

  I thought back on the paradise falcon's body. I was able to guess correctly that its heart was its source, but this thing is a lot more complicated.

  "Mors, is there any way I can analyze a body to see what parts could grant abilities?"

  Mors appeared and seemed to think for a moment.

  "There just might be a way, Master. Try fusing yourself with a part of it. If you do, then I may be able to treat it as if it were your own body and create a readout for you."

  I moved my finger to the side of the creature's leg. Using my fingernail I cut into it, then fused it to my finger.

  "Here is your readout, Master."

  NOTABLE PARTS:

  Eyes of the wendigo: The eyes of the wendigo can sense the life-force of anything they can see, enabling the wendigo to find the freshest meat.

  Abilities Granted:

  Life Sense: You can see the living or the recently deceased even through thin obstacles.

  Coerce Lesser Lifeform: The eyes may be used to passively affect the will of lesser life forms to do your bidding.

  Nose of the wendigo: The nose has a profound sense of smell. It is extra-sensitive to the smell of death.

  Abilities Granted:

  Profound sense of smell: Passive

  You will be able to smell death for miles away if the wind is in your favor.

  Lungs of the wendigo: The lungs of the wendigo actually work in tandem drawing in and exhaling air at the same time. They are not used to breathe. They are used to infuse mana into the air.

  Abilities Granted:

  Mana infusion: By drawing air into your lungs you may infuse it with effects.

  Fog generation: By exhaling you can generate a thick fog that carries any infused effects to potential victims.

  Heart of the wendigo: The wendigo heart is a hard structure and was not be used to circulate blood. It was used instead for mana regeneration and soul storage.

  Abilities Granted:

  Moderate Mana Regeneration: You will now regenerate mana at a rate of 5 mana per hour.

  Natural Soul Storage: This heart is a naturally occurring soul prison; it may house multiple souls. Naturally occurring soul prisons are considered rare and valuable to necromancers.

  Stomach of the wendigo: The stomach of the wendigo can convert what it eats into mana. It also passively absorbs so
ul fragments, automatically converting them into mana.

  Body of the wendigo: Wendigos are powerful beings. Their strength and resilience is considered to be among the higher ranks of the undead. Their tough, emaciated flesh is hard to cut or pierce by normal means. They are known to be one of the most terrifying beings to encounter, though very few live to share what they have seen.

  I separated my finger from the wendigo.

  This is pretty amazing. I'm sorry, Bob, but I'm taking a lot of this stuff for myself. I flexed my hand and sat up. It was still daytime outside. Though the cave's floor still felt cold to the touch, things were starting to warm up. I was able to move again.

  I decided to get to work.

  I activated Fleshcrafting .

  First I took out its left eye, then my own. I compared them. Its eye still had a faint glow. I placed the eye into my socket and activated Life Sense. I looked around. It was basically like infrared except everything was a shade of yellow. I looked at the rodent carcasses that were spread out around me. The fresher ones had some red on them. I looked at my hand. It was a darker shade of red. With my other eye I could see the yellow glow on my hand. I deactivated Life Sense, and the glow faded.

  I closed my right eye. You never really realize just how dark it is in here without night sight. If daylight wasn't coming from the entrance, then I probably couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. I closed my eyes and thought about modifying the eye to add night sight. I opened my eyes. Ah, better. Hmm, wait a minute. An idea struck me. I closed my eyes again and thought about modifying my right eye to add Life Sense. I blinked my eyes alternating left and right. Yep, I had Life Sense in both.

  I was starting to understand how Fleshcrafting worked. Anything that was a part of me I immediately had an understanding of. I added coercion to my right eye. Pity I didn't have anything to use it on. I modified what used to be my left eye to have all three abilities and placed it back into the wendigo. My eyes were now both glowing. I deactivated Life Sense and the glow stopped.

  I looked at the eye I had placed in the wendigo. It was now a deep amber color instead of a sickly yellow.

  I looked at the wendigo's nose. It was like the nose of an animal in shape but it's skin was a pale, muddled flesh color. I separated it from the wendigo and Blended it with my own, making it a more pleasant human shape. I finally had a full nose, not the nub I had been calling one. I inhaled. Yeah, this place definitely smelled like death. Luckily for me my ghoul stomach found that smell to be delicious. I converted the surrounding tissue on the wendigo's face to form another nose with all the capabilities similar in shape to mine. I looked for a second. No, this won't do. That perfect human nose on this emaciated dog/deer face just doesn't seem right. I sculpted the face inward, condensing bone and lengthening teeth. I made the nose a bit more animalistic, this time adding that darker color you might expect to see here.

  This thing still looked absolutely horrifying but also a little more natural now.

  I needed to streamline this process. Rather than exchanging everything as I had been doing, it might be quicker to modify what I already had.

  I plunged my spike into the wendigo's torso and inserted my entire hand. I fused my hand with its organs and nerves. A thick, viscous, black substance oozed out. I'm guessing that this is what the wendigo used as blood.

  I modified my parts to be similar to the wendigo's. I changed my stomach to have the wendigo's capability to convert what I ate into mana. I still retained my Feast ability. The lungs weren't too hard, but I did still want to breath, as rotting didn't appeal to me. I wanted the Mana Regeneration from the heart, but I detested soul prisons. I had no intentions of binding anything. I copied the Mana Regeneration and converted the wendigo's heart to a soft functioning one so it would no longer be a soul prison. I used Blend on the wendigo's skin to give it an even skin color.

  Well, Bob won't like this. It doesn't seem to have any reproductive organs. Hell, I should put him in here like this just to see his reaction. But after laughing to myself for a while I decided that wouldn't be right.

  I actually didn't have any flesh to spare to create him anything else. I also didn't like the bony look of the wendigo. I needed to go hunting to get Bob some more parts before I transferred him into this thing. I wanted him to be beefy, or at least to get him some more fat and skin. Most of the wendigo's strength came from the fact that it was undead. When I brought it to life it would lose that toughness. Like the difference between steak and beef jerky. I absolutely refused to turn Bob into an undead, as that would bind his will. He would only be a puppet then.

  It was time for some upgrades.

  I picked Lina up and fused my finger to her abdomen. I gave her the eyes with all capabilities but made them a bright green color. Her heart was too small to get good mana regeneration but I guessed this would give her about half a point per hour. That just wasn't enough for much of anything.

  I needed to make her bigger. I guess the easiest thing to use would be Bob's remains. I was letting him have the wendigo anyway after I was finished modifying it. I really needed someone to help me with hunting, and Lina was our expert.

  I removed my finger from Lina and grabbed Bob's remains. I examined them. He was little more than a head and part of a torso. I felt a sense of loss when I looked at them. This body was something I had made for him. It was how I viewed him in my mind. I had spent time crafting this body, and in an instant my work was destroyed, and my friend was almost taken from me.

  I had a relatively disgusting idea. I knew the wendigo converted things it ate into mana, but maybe it didn't quite digest all of Bob.

  I thrust my spike into the wendigo's stomach and inserted my hand once more. This was becoming a gross habit of mine. I was able to pull out a leg and a bit of wing. The wendigo's digestion didn't waste time.

  I now had maybe half of Bob's body in scattered parts.

  I tried combining it together with Lina's body in the same way that I had combined the goblin bodies to make Leera.

  Lina was now about eight inches tall. I checked the heart again. It was still not even 1 mana per hour.

  I looked around the room. There were several rodent corpses and pieces. I gathered those up and placed them into a pile. The parts pile was now more of a bone pile after I made Leera.

  Oh god, it had been planning to eat Leera! I felt ashamed. I had just mated with her and she had already died in my arms. I hadn't even been here for a full week yet, and I was already failing the woman I loved. Everyone needed to get stronger, especially me.

  I felt my hatred creeping back up again. The elder god had responded to my feelings once more. It seemed to say, “If you've seen enough of this world, let's just consume it all.” I had to remind myself she was still alive inside me. I would fix her as well, but first I needed to think about how to improve her survivability. Of all of us she was still the most at risk. She was highly visible and her only combat attributes were quickness, agility and mild self-healing. This might work if she knew some kind of martial art, but I myself didn't even really know how to fight.

  I walked over to the parts pile. I saw Etreona's corpse. Bob had eaten most of it from the head to the breast. It was a good thing that Leera had been too busy with me to notice it earlier. That may have been traumatic for her to say the least.

  I grabbed the paradise falcon's body and added it to the rodent pile.

  I remembered that Mors had informed me that the feathers were sought-after. Maybe there was more to these feathers than just the bright colors.

  I joined my finger to the bird carcass.

  Ah, so that was why. The feathers can gather mana from the air around them passively. With just one paradise falcon feather you could practically double your mana regen.

  But I couldn't just give the wings to Lina. The wings were quite vibrant. They spanned from a light teal to an eye catching orange. I didn't want her to be a target for hunters while she flew. Nor did I want her to alert any pot
ential prey. I would need to change the colors later.

  I also wanted to impart this gift to Leera, as it was something she would already be accustomed to.

  I pulled out a few red and white feathers to set aside for Leera. I thought it was important that she had parts from her original body instead of replicas.

  I used Soul Steal on the rodent pile. I got another five rodent souls.

  I began the slow process of Blending everything together. Lina was now at around sixteen inches, thanks mainly to the paradise falcon. She had a wingspan of around three-and-a-half feet.

  No, I could do better. I grabbed some additional bone from the parts pile and moved over to the wendigo. It just didn't seem right to have to look up to Bob anyway. I would borrow some sections of the wendigo. Lina needed to be bigger because we wouldn't be hunting vermin this time.

  I got to work Fleshcrafting.

  Now Lina was around two feet tall. Her wingspan was around five feet. Her wings were a combination of bat and bird, but she was missing several feathers. I changed the overall wing color to a midnight black, similar to a raven’s. I added a few more layers of the mana-gathering feathers. Her heart was now larger than the paradise falcon's heart was. It was able to get two mana per hour. She could now potentially cast a few spells a day with the heart alone. She had a massive mana gathering potential now, though, with her wings.

  I opened the wendigo's soul and clicked on Magic.

  Curse of Sleep: When used the target will feel an almost unbeatable drowsiness that will compel them to sleep.

  Curse of Paralysis: When used the target will be unable to move for a time.

  Cold Infusion: A primal form of cold magic that does not rely on water. This is mainly observed in powerful forms of the undead such as the lich. It is often used as a method to prevent decay. In ice golems it prevents melting. In traditional magic this would be used in conjunction with water magic to create ice constructs for offensive purposes.