A Flesh Golem's Ascension

by John Domus Cruo

  "Bob, fog the trees." I commanded.

  I saw the massive blob that was Bob appear suddenly in the clump of trees as fog overtook the forest.

  As soon as he appeared, he was gone, and the screaming resumed from another direction.

  I thought about what sort of soldier hangs out in trees. I leaned down and picked up one of the larger improvised shields. This one would cover me shoulder to shin.

  I ran toward the treeline. When I wasn't too far away I heard something whistle past me. I held up my shield and continued my charge as a few more arrows thunked into it. The fog apparently did the trick here. Their accuracy was terrible. I raised my shield up higher as I got close.

  I rammed into the closest one as his body flew back into the tree with a sickening crunch. The other two were up in the trees. I didn't know what to do. If only I had brought Lina.

  I looked to the one I had just killed; he still held his bow. I remembered I had obtained the archery skill from the goblins. I rushed over to him, keeping my shield between me and the archers. I planted it in the ground, letting it lean over my head as I crouched by the fallen archer and retrieved his bow and quiver. I heard another thunk to my shield and one from the tree above my head.

  I moved quickly behind the tree leaving, my shield. I knocked an arrow and peered at the human-shaped blobs through the tree.

  I leaned out, quickly releasing my arrow toward the closest blob. It sailed over his head, hitting a tree behind his.

  Well, goblin accuracy probably isn't that impressive. I knocked another arrow and leaned out from the other side this time, letting it fly at the same target. An arrow hit my forehead but only broke the skin, unable to penetrate my skull. The archer wasn't as lucky, as my shot caused him to fall from his tree. I dodged back into cover and saw his blob dodge behind his tree.

  I drew my bow again and stepped out from my tree, squarely hitting the last treed archer in the chest. He fell and lay unmoving.

  I darted to the front of my tree and retrieved my shield. I ran to the front of the last archer's tree, using Stalk to move silently.

  I heard labored breathing. I released my sleeping fog in large, thick gouts. I heard his breathing slow as a scraping noise indicated he was sliding down the tree he was slumped against.

  I moved to the other side and put my bone spike through his skull.

  I ran my fingers along the sore place on my head. My forehead wound had already disappeared.

  I collected his arrows, adding them to mine. I slung my bow across my back and gripped my shield. I looked back at the main camp.

  The fog was starting to clear. There were no longer any moving blobs except for a few in some of the tents.

  I made my way back. I didn't want to just barge into the tents killing everyone. That female scream from earlier seemed to hint that not everyone here was a soldier.

  Bob was doing something unspeakable to the headless corpse of a fairly large soldier. I left him to it.

  I approached the tent I had heard the screams coming from earlier.

  There was only one small blob in this tent. I opened the flap as the smell of filth overwhelmed me. I saw a small, limbless girl tied to a bed by a rope around her neck. She had to have been in her early teens. Her face was badly swollen, blood leaking from one eye socket while her other was swollen shut. I walked over to her and gently moved the hair off her face. She tried to move her head quickly, fleeing my touch. I continued to stroke her soft brown hair as I fought to keep my rage buried inside myself.

  I felt the elder god calling out to me. It was giving me a feeling like, Are we ready to consume this world yet?

  She eventually began to accept my touch as her breathing quieted down. I was doing this just as much for myself as for her. It calmed me down, as I could feel something unstoppable building inside myself.

  I thought she wasn’t that different from Lina. What if this was one of my girls cut limbless and used?

  "I've killed them all." I said gently to her.

  She tried to say something through her broken teeth, but I noticed she had no tongue.

  "No one will ever do this to you again. I'll fix it, now rest." I exhaled my sleeping fog over her and she drifted off to sleep.

  I tore out of the tent in a rage. They got off too easy! I had simply killed most of them outright. That was a grievous error on my part. They needed to suffer. I needed them to suffer.

  I felt something warm dripping onto my chest. I reached my hand up. It was more of that black oily liquid.

  A power surged within me. I felt a cold embrace as something began soothing my soul. It seemed to say, If anything ever happens that you can't bear, I'll make it all disappear.

  I looked around, madly searching for Thads. If he was already dead, I would bring him back. He would pay. Then I would consume him.

  I ran to the next tent that contained a blob. There was a big man with blood-stained pants cowering in the corner.

  I rushed forward and grabbed him by his shoulders. I used my strength along with Fleshcrafting to tear his arms from his body.

  I grabbed him by the throat and dragged him kicking and screaming to the young girl's tent.

  "Did you take part in this?" I yelled as I used all my will to stop myself from killing him then and there.

  "I... I..." He stammered.

  I dragged him over to the still sleeping girl. I exhaled more fog over her face. She didn't need to be awake for what was to come next.

  I activated Fleshcrafting.

  The man shrieked in a high voice for his size as I removed bone, flesh, and tendons to rebuild the girl. He had a few heart attacks and at one point decided to bite off his own tongue, but each time I restarted his heart. I left him there, only a torso remaining as I went to retrieve his arms. I added them to the girl and sized them proportionately.

  I imparted all skills and abilities to her, condensing the muscle and bone to give her unusual strength and resilience. As a last step I restored her maidenhead and added internal teeth. This would all soon seem like a nightmare to her. She now had one brown eye and one blue eye, however. I could change them both, but I wanted this bastard to see his own eye staring back at him when she woke up.

  I used Blend to finish the process. She now had a shape like any other girl her age. I picked up some of the furs she was lying on and covered her up. I untied the rope and dragged the stumpless excuse for a man outside. Though can I still call him a man now that I removed his pride?

  "Bob, a present for you. But don't kill him. He will still have a long day ahead of him tomorrow. Then an eternity as a torch." I didn't hide the anger in my voice.

  "Boss, you can't mean to do that to him! You have no idea what it's like. You just burn there as you lose parts of yourself." Bob said in an almost pleading voice.

  "They had a young girl chopped limbless and tied to a bed in that tent. She was lying in blood and feces. Thads was raping her as we approached, and this guy also took his turn." I said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Why don't you describe to him what being a torch was like while you have your fun. Who knows, it might make him tense up more.”

  Bob seemed to smile as he dragged the man off.

  I walked to the next tent with life. I found three more cowards between all the remaining tents.

  I took each one to the girl, verifying their guilt before stripping them limbless part by part and handing them off to Bob.

  As morning approached, Bob and I gathered up all the bodies and lined them up in neat rows and part groupings. I looked for Thads but I didn't see him among the dead. I would find him at some point, though. I felt an echoing sentiment from the elder god inside me. When I do, he'll be my personal torch.

  I used Soul Steal on all the bodies, then on the bodies in the stinking pit.

  The pulling feeling finally subsided.

  I returned to the young girl's tent. I sat on her bed and resumed stroking her soft brown hair.

  "Fa... ther..." She croaked
as she leaned her head into my hand. The warm black liquid once again ran down my face as I suppressed my rage.

  I closed my eyes and opened the soul screen. I needed to focus on something else.

  I now had 55 souls.

  I imediately converted the Sha'Dwarg into mana, but I was still saving the wendigo for a mana emergency.

  My mana pool was now 10,088/10,088

  I sorted through my remaining 54 souls.

  There were:

  14 souls of a petty criminal

  8 souls of a trained infantryman

  5 souls of a cutthroat

  7 souls of a trained archer

  3 souls of a poacher

  3 souls of a Garanthi sympathizer

  4 souls of a tortured goblin

  5 souls of a tortured villager

  At seeing the last groupings, I could tell I’d have my work cut out for me. When I'm done this place will glow like a green-flamed sun with guilty heads.

  1 soul of Lenny

  1 soul of a Garanthi General

  1 soul of a crestfallen coachman

  1 soul of a devoted follower

  1 soul of the wendigo

  I began stripping the petty criminals of their skills.

  Pickpocket: level 3

  Target spotting: level 2

  Knifework: level 2

  Social engineering: level 1

  From the trained infantrymen I gained:

  Swordsmanship: level 5

  Shieldwork: level 4

  Spearmanship: level 3

  Military tactics: level 3

  The cutthroats got me:

  Stealth awareness: level 2

  Backstab: level 3

  Ambush: level 3

  Daggerwork: level 4

  I already had hide and Stalk, so those just went up one level.

  The archers leveled up my archery to level 5, military tactics to level 4, and ambush to level 4.

  The poachers brought my archery to level 6, hunting to level 4, and granted two skills:

  Tracking: level 3

  Traps: level 2

  None had magic.

  I left the souls from Garanthi sympathizers alone. I didn't know enough about this world yet to know if they were friends or foes. I only knew they came from the pit.

  I opened my eyes. The girl was still asleep. I brought in the slavering torsos that had been the survivors. I had to fleshcraft a few, as they were bleeding copious amounts from their nethers. It was apparent that Bob had made additional holes once he got tired of the normal ones. I Fleshcrafted their lips together. God help them if they disturbed her sleep. I laid them in a neat row by the far wall.

  I closed my eyes again and began to conduct interviews with the petty criminals.

  Most of them just cowered, a few screamed, and some just hurled cocky insults at me until I informed them of their death and what was in store for them next.

  Yeah, that lot was guilty.

  The infantrymen were harder to crack. Quite a few of them just stared at me stone-faced until I opened one eye to show them the girl, then a few of them even broke down in tears, saying they never wanted to do it but they were ordered. One of them I recognized as the last one I had killed in that shield wall formation. He screamed when he saw me. He yelled it was all that Thads bastard's fault.

  They were still guilty. Everyone has a choice, even if the alternative is death. They could have made a stand. Given the number of tortured souls I had, I knew they’d had many chances to stop this. But they didn't, and so they were guilty.

  The cutthroats weren't any different than the petty criminals. I hope they enjoy what's coming to them.

  The trained archers were like the infantrymen. One just kept repeating his name and rank.

  It was sad, but they were guilty.

  The poachers were the most normal of them, but they still admitted with shame in their eyes what they had done.

  I spoke with the Garanthi sympathizers. They spoke Therossian with slight accents.

  They expressed a deep shame and dishonor for what they had done. They informed me of a plan that they were working on to kill Thads and his group to try and stop it. When I told them of what was to become of them they just nodded their heads, saying it was a fitting punishment for them.

  They were guilty, but they were trying to stop it.

  I offered them a chance. I would erase their memories and use them as soldiers once more. Two of them agreed, but the last one just shook his head. He told me he deserved to burn. His honor wouldn't let him accept anything else.

  These guys weren't bad, but they had done bad things. I would erase the memories of the one who opted to burn and keep him as a soldier in a new flesh construct. The other two were going to be mana.

  I spoke to the goblins. After what happened with Leera, Lina, and their son from a previous life, I now knew that goblins weren't soulless fodder. They had feelings. They cared for their families just like humans. They bled, they felt pain, and they could even laugh like anyone else.

  They were yelling and begging. One older-looking goblin readily hugged two smaller ones with spectral tears streaming down his face.

  He looked up at me and spoke. "They kill us! They make me watch! They kill my little gobs, roast them. They make me see it!"

  I could feel the black ooze flowing once more as if something was threatening to burst out from me.

  I told them I would show them a beautiful sight soon, then I would make them new bodies, even better than their old ones, and guide them home. The goblin that was off to the side joined in their hug, and I nodded to them as I closed out of the screen.

  I hesitated for a moment. I needed to get myself together for this next group. I couldn't greet them like this. I took a few deep breaths.

  I opened the screen with the five tortured villagers.

  They were all young, limbless girls. None of them could speak, as none of them had tongues.

  By now I knew enough about how souls appeared to know that they manifest in the last the physical state they most remember being in. These girls had probably been kept in this state for a while — long enough to make them feel that this was their true form.

  Most of them were crying, and one of them was making gurgling noises as if trying to talk.

  I turned my head over to the torsos and opened my eyes. I then turned my head back to the intact sleeping girl.

  Most of them began to smile slightly. The gurgling one managed something that sounded like a thank-you.

  I told them what I would be doing with the rest of their captors, and they seemed at peace.

  I would give them new bodies. I wouldn’t let these mangled forms be their last memories.

  I thought about trying to convert their memories into mana as I had done for Bob, but I could only go from the beginning, not in reverse, and I wanted them to remember their happy childhoods and their families.

  I could still feel the warm liquid dripping from my eyes.

  I felt a soft hand on my face. I opened my eyes.

  The young girl was wiping my face.

  "Don't cry," she said as she looked up at me with a small smile.

  How could she possibly smile? My lip quivered as I looked down at her. She sat up and hugged me. As I sobbed into her shoulder, she hugged me tighter. Where did she find the strength? Even someone like me was reduced to a blubbering idiot by all this cruelty, and she had experienced it firsthand.

  I pulled myself away while using the calming effect. I saw the black liquid fading into her body as her skin color turned a slight grey where it had touched her.

  "It doesn't hurt now," she said as she examined her hands.

  All I could do was nod.

  She looked over at the torso collection at the far wall.

  "Did you do this?" she said in a small happy voice.

  I nodded again.

  "I prayed a lot in the past week. First I prayed for money so my family could eat. Then I prayed for my sister's happiness
when she left to marry the Duke's son." She stopped for a moment a tear formed at the corner of her eye.

  "When the money didn't come and the coachman didn't return, my family prayed that my sister would be happy in Therossa's garden. Then they sent me to marry the Duke's son." The tears were now flowing freely from her small face as she continued. "I was a little too young, but they told me to say I was older. When I got here..."

  I pulled her into my arms and let her cry into my chest as she continued her story in a muffled voice. "When I got here, Therossa stopped listening. The blonde one told me I looked a lot like another girl they had, just a while ago. I thought about my sister going through this. Then, earlier today, I prayed to something else. Something more evil than them. I wanted it to come and show them how it felt."

  She looked up at me as I held her shaking body. "You came." She was now sobbing again as I felt my tears flowing as well.

  That pulling sensation I could only guess was prayer — people calling the dark god inside of myself. If I had only come sooner, I could have saved more of these girls — at least one more.

  Maybe I still can. I have their souls. I just have to take the next step.

  "I'm here. I'll always be here. Until the world ends." I promised as I held her close for a while, until her crying lessened.

  "I have so much more to do yet. These ones here are only the survivors. They will all burn, long after today. I will make this place a monument to their suffering. Not even the dead will escape this." I said as I once again stroked her long brown hair.

  I spoke softly to her. "When this is done, I will take you back to your family, and you can forget this part of your life."

  She pushed away from me. "My family is just as guilty for this as they are!" she said as she gestured to the torsos.