by J. Carrarn
"And here we are! A free quarter in the safest, most desirable of locations. The center of Tendraal! Littered with Satri to increase the mana density and help you evolve!"
Borl stood beside a small, crooked bone door. He knocked on it a few times in an odd pattern, and a green and mottled zombie opened up. It nodded at Borl and moved off without a word.
"What are—" Tatjie began to mutter when Derin kicked her shin, glaring at her.
He was glad when she just blinked then nodded.
"The wyrm orb will let you stay here for six days. After that, you either vacate, or I'll share your location with the Yellowplates."
Borl smiled evilly before turning around, hugging the large orb close to his chest. The two red skeletons followed him.
Looking at the door, Derin shrugged and moved inside a spacious, empty room. There was a small window to one side, too small to crawl through. Walking further inside, he noted that the ceiling wasn't straight but crooked. One side of the room was too low to be able to stand upright in, while the other side of the room's ceiling was so high that he couldn't even reach it with his arms at full stretch.
"Are we finally allowed to speak again?" Tatjie hissed after she was inside the room.
Sig closed the door before nodding. "Yes, but no yelling."
"As if I would do that!" Tatjie laughed loudly. She moved to the window to stare outside and gasped.
"Look at this!"
Derin and the others rushed next to her, huddling close together to gaze out through the small window.
An enormous staircase cut a line up through the buildings. Each step was wide enough for ten or more undead to move on side by side, but currently, no one was using it. In front of it was a large open area, surrounded by tall, chaotically intertwined buildings with small windows.
"I bet that staircase leads straight to Scathia!" Tatjie said, her eyes glittering with wonder.
"It does…" Sig said, turning around and putting the containers on the ground. Sitting beside them, he took the lid off one and grabbed two mana-orbs before closing his eyes as the mana-orbs started glowing.
"Sig… when are you leaving?" Derin asked, eyeing the two containers. Although he hadn't got a chance to see what his new evolution could do, he wasn't going to complain if he could drain more orbs.
"Soon."
Getting no more from the stoic black undead, Derin looked at Tirella. "So, what else can you do now?"
The orange undead lay down, stretching herself and arching her back.
"I don't know. Solus just said he would add parts of his pattern to mine. Something about my current pattern being difficult and incompatible with many others?"
"At least you still look the same!" Tatjie said with a grunt as she stared at her arms sadly.
"What are you complaining about? Solus beat the bile out of you for a long time, and you're still in one piece! I don't know anybody else who would be able to stand up to that kind of punishment," Derin said with a laugh.
Tatjie didn't reply but shot him a filthy look before turning to Tirella. "So? Can you create buildings now?"
"I don't know… there's not enough stone here to try."
"If you can, and when we get back to Skulltown, I want you to make me a tower!" Tatjie sighed as she lay on her back and closed her eyes.
"I can try," Tiralla replied with some uncertainty, sitting with her back against the wall and staring at the stone containers with orbs.
"Sig?" Tatjie asked.
The wraith grunted.
"What are Satri?"
"I don't know."
Derin grinned to himself as he sat down and contemplated all that had happened in the past few days.
It was midnight, and the starlight fell through the small window when Sig finally got up. Derin gazed at the tall wraith, curious as to what would happen.
Wiping the dust from his hands, Sig gazed at the containers. After a second's hesitation, he grabbed some orbs and stuffed them in the small pouch around his bone leg armor.
He looked at the others, focusing on Tirella. "Don't drain them all. Take two each, and leave the rest. We might need them."
He moved to the wall with the window before turning around again. "Do as Tirella says while I am gone. Don't go running off like brainless zombies."
Derin shook his head, looking at Sig in confusion. "Why her and not me?"
Tirella looked just as surprised, and she frowned at Sig.
"Because she has survived for longer than any of us put together, and in more dire situations," Sig said.
Derin felt the other's intense stare, and after a moment, he nodded in agreement.
Sig turned into a massive roiling cloud of black smoke that filled half the room. His red eyes lingered on Derin for a moment before he surged up and phased through the ceiling.
"Great!" Tatjie said as she got up. "More orbs! Maybe I can get my arms back!"
Derin sighed as he followed her to the baskets. Grabbing an orb, he tossed it to Tirella, who smiled and nodded.
Grabbing one for himself, Derin sat down and closed his eyes.
I should have stayed in Skulltown...
Another step forward
The first thing Solus realized when he finally woke up was that the pain wasn't gone, but he was still on his back. He didn't smell anything strange, so that was a good thing. As he pushed himself up, his head throbbed dully.
So, sleeping didn't help much, he thought, the hope that sleep could have re-energized him shattered.
Perhaps he should try that thing he had done before, where his mind went blank.
Meditation, the term floated through his mind and he nodded. That had made him feel a lot better and quickly replenished a portion of his mana.
Sitting cross-legged took some effort, but he eventually succeeded. As he focused on the floor, he tried to still his thoughts. It took only a few moments for him to realize that it wasn't going to work. The pain was distracting him, and at the same time, his mind was preoccupied with finding a solution to his current predicament. He also had the feeling he was forgetting something, which wasn't helping either.
It felt like he had no other choice, so he pulled up his status window and looked at his evolutions. After staring at the available options for a long time, he shouted in frustration. None of them seemed like the one he needed. Looking down at the ground, he remembered the presence far below.
"You down there, why don't you tell me what I should do?" he roared, striking the ground.
There was no response. Annoyed and unwilling to give up, he reached out with his stone-sense, probing the depths for a reaction. The cold rock easily let his mind pass through, and he enjoyed the sensation until he rammed into what felt like a solid wall. His senses and mind rebounded, and he shook his head groggily. Something was blocking him.
Going back down, he carefully scanned the substance. It was hard to see amidst the stone, but it reminded him of gold when he probed it.
He grabbed at his wrist and noted the golden bracelet was gone—no surprise there, it had probably melted off of him when he fell into the lava.
He began to examine the material, noticing that it was less pure and dense than gold.
Extending his senses, he found that the material stretched far to the sides. There were small paths of stone, like a maze, that ran through it. Following those might get him down, but he faltered. What if his mind couldn't find the way out? Would it be locked deep below the earth forever?
He frowned and was about to head back when he found a small, loose chunk. Although it was embedded in rock, it wasn't connected to the rest, and he began pulling it up to the surface. The rock resisted him, and the throbbing in his head increased, quickly becoming an almost unbearable chorus of pain. He grit his teeth and continued pulling at the substance until the ground beside him opened up. A small stone platform rose up, and on top of it lay a grey lump of rock, tainted with streaks of an ochre color.
He picked it up. It was heavy,
dense, and cold.
Iron- the word came with more concepts and a flash of images in his mind.
This is the stuff the ancients built everything with, he thought. On a whim, he tried to draw out more information, but all he got was the word and the same stream of images. Annoyed, he probed even harder, for the first time trying to actively draw on the information by force. Just when he thought that he would pass out from the strain, another nugget of information was pried loose from his subconscious.
It's a mineral!
Images of suits of iron, starships, and a host of other things made from this simple material came to the forefront of his mind.
Getting excited, he summoned his status window and looked at the options. Suddenly, the Mineral elemental seemed a lot more interesting. There might not be a lot of metal on the surface, but there were massive deposits below the earth.
Unsure, wishing he had more answers, he reluctantly looked to the ground again.
"If I evolve so I can mold metal as I do earth, would that be a good thing?" he asked, projecting his voice down into the depths, leaving the question hanging.
He didn't get a reply, and he stomped on the ground in frustration, creating a small tremor. Shaking his head, he sat down, holding the ore in his lap as he frowned at the options displayed on his status screen. The choice was more difficult this time. If he chose the wrong path, he couldn't just wipe his mana-field clean and try again as he had done with Tatjie. If he tried, he would lose consciousness halfway through the process, and then what? Images of iron and fire danced through his mind for a while, and as he saw them, he wondered.
He got up, the iron ore in hand, and ran toward the wall. A tunnel opening appeared that led back to the massive cavern. When he got closer to the cavern, he hesitated. He scanned through the last foot of rock separating the tunnel from the cavern. He had to make sure that there were no nasty surprises waiting for him on the other side.
Puss and bile!
The shaking of the earth still inhibited him from feeling the minute tremors caused by footsteps. He decided to make a small opening in the stone. Perhaps he would be able to see if any of those things were skulking about. Opening a crack in the last barrier of stone caused a gust of hot air to waft into the tunnel, accompanied by the sound of bubbling and flowing lava. He waited, peering through the opening, annoyed at feeling this vulnerable and helpless. After a few uneventful moments, he widened the opening and stepped through.
Everything seemed the same as before: the oppressive heat, the distant glow of red at the back of the cavern, and the broken stalactites on the ceiling.
Carefully, and keeping his eyes out for any threats, he headed back toward the lava. The closer he got, the hotter it became, and when he was almost there, he stopped. The memory of his legs as they burned in agony made him shiver. Even now, the flesh around his legs was stiff and painful.
He looked around for any of the lava beasts, but they were all far away. The closest was no more than a small figure, currently occupied with lying in the lava and apparently enjoying it.
Solus moved to the bank of the lava river, and the soles of his feet burned from the heat of the stone. Trying to ignore it, he looked at the iron in his hand. After a moment of contemplating how he should go about his little test, he created a small stone arm and put the iron ore on it, ignoring the increasing pain inside his head as he did so. He lowered the stone arm into the lava. The edges began to disintegrate almost immediately, but he kept his eyes locked on the iron ore.
Nothing happened at first, but then the outside of the clump started to heat up, turning dark red, and the color slowly changed from orange to a bright almost white yellow.
He had to reinforce the stone tendril a few times before he raised it back out of the magma. The iron ore had turned into a white-yellow liquid that sluggishly flowed over the stone hand.
So iron melts in lava, he thought sadly, as he dropped the tendril and molten metal into the lava. He wasn't sure why he was sad about this fact, but it did answer at least one of his questions.
Deep in thought, he walked back to the wall of the cave. The heavy thudding that he had heard before had started up again; it was coming from deep in the cavern to the north. He stopped and stared into the distance. His eyes didn't pick up anything, just the encroaching darkness, but his stone-sense told him something was slamming into stone repeatedly.
Should I go and check it out? He hesitated for a moment, then turned away. He was curious, but not stupid. He knew that he wouldn't be ready for a fight if it came to that. It was too dangerous. Noting the location, he walked back into the tunnel and headed back to his room, closing the tunnel behind him as he went.
As he entered his room, his head had begun to thump in rhythm with the pounding on the stone. He was trying to ignore it but that was almost impossible now. He sat down on the stone bed and summoned his status window, navigating to his list of evolutions.
Magma elemental, he thought without any more hesitation. Immediately his mana-field flared into existence, intense dark-grey and filled with bright green lines. It was too large for the room, the top sections disappeared through the ceiling.
He shot upright as a burning heat filled his bones, not painful exactly, but not comfortable either. He felt agitated and jittery, as if every molecule in his body was trying to move in different directions. The clarity of his mind faded, and a chaotic maelstrom of memories and images swirled through his mind.
As he tried hard to keep his focus, his gaze darted around as he attempted to watch every inch of his field at the same time to see what would change.
The deep grey began turning into a dark red, then orange, almost like the iron had done. The green lines, bright at first, darkened and deepened as they changed, lines and symbols extending outward. An odd sensation came from his nose and throat, quickly increasing to painful levels. Opening his mouth, he belched. A thick plume of black, dotted with glowing red embers surged out while streams of black smoke trickled out of his nose.
This is all wrong!
He was beginning to lose control, starting to panic. The heat in his bones increased, and his mana-field became bright yellow, almost white. Searing pain poured into his mind like a stream of burning lava and flowed from there throughout his entire body. As he crumbled to the ground, his jaws were clenched so tightly that he couldn't even howl to express his agony.
His conscious thoughts dimmed as his mind became a swirling mass of chaos. He barely felt the stone he was lying on heating up. Time and its passage became meaningless as he flailed and spasmed on the ground, desperately trying to regain a measure of control.
"WRONNGGGG," the deep voice bellowed into what was left of his mind from the depths below. It was filled with worry and fear.
Even through the chaos and the pain, Solus felt something heavy press down on his being, and then an immense presence flooded into the room. The turmoil in his mind seemed to fear it and recoiled. For a brief moment, Solus could think clearly again.
“NOTTTT LIKEEEE THATTTTTT.”
The inside of Solus's mind seemed to expand outward from the power of the voice, and it felt as if his mind had been forcefully ejected from his body and hurtled across a massive expanse of nothingness. The last thing he heard before blacking out was the voice, quiet and dim as if it were speaking to him through a long tunnel.
"LIKEEE THISSSS. LIKE THISSSS..."
—
Warm, comfortable, and wrapped in a secure embrace, Solus resisted when he began to wake, desiring no more than to remain as he was now. Something enormous nudged him, pushing him away into the cold.
"LEARNNN." A soft rumble in his mind said, sounding joyful but tired.
Feeling his mind shoot up and away from the warmth of the other, Solus felt a loneliness he had never felt before. He also sensed something else. The other was dying, a concept almost too impossible for him to understand fully. Not ending, as the undead did, but something else, something worse. It he
ralded the loss of something that was now unique in the whole galaxy—the loss of life. Perhaps the only life left anywhere.
Feeling the presence fade as he shot up, he saw a green light in his mind.
With a gasp and a cough, Solus sat up on his elbows. The room around him was empty and quiet now, a pungent odor lingering everywhere. Black smudges and deep lacerations marred the merrily glowing green walls. A soft ping startled him, and slowly he came to understand what had just happened.
It is alive…!
He barely understood what that meant, knowing only that it was what all things had been before the ancients had left the galaxy eons ago. He also knew it wouldn't be alive for much longer. The life it had was draining away, no longer being able to sustain itself on this dead world.
Still, even with this knowledge, Solus felt content as he lay on his back. He felt a warmth radiating from deep inside himself. It was not like the swirling chaos that he had felt before, but warm and nurturing. It wasn't life; he knew that right away. It was a mixture of his cold undead energy, combined with the chaotic heat he had felt before blacking out. Curious, he summoned his status window.
> New sub-race pattern detected within mana-field
> Near match found
> Registering mutated variant of Pseudo world elemental
> Congratulations on finding an as-of-yet unknown pattern!
> Opening shop window
> ERROR no connection detected
> Limited system use
> Would you like to sell the information on the newly found pattern? Please be aware; scanning this type of pattern will destroy your undead minion. A new minion will be supplied as compensation.
> Due to limited system availability, there are only three reward options.
YES / NO
The question caused him to shiver in fear, and he quickly selected no.
> If you change your mind later, make your way to our nearest field office.